Cutter

Whoops, guess I wasn't totally clear! The intent was that you, the Tanker, gain Hibernate's "can't touch this" bubble, while the mobs around you get hit with a short-duration, damaging Glacier hold.

Turn Hibernate into a damaging Glacier? Shorten the duration while still providing a full or near-full heal/recovery. Make it a giant "pause" button.

That does help, thanks! I appreciate seeing different builds and rationale behind them. More to think about while I make the level grind.

That's what my initial scan through the set was telling me as well. Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

That's encouraging, thanks! I'll keep working on her. Really looking forward to Mass Lev, and eventually having an attack chain that doesn't involve Vet powers! What, if anything, have you skipped from /Psi?

Rolled up a baby Ice/Psi recently. I'm familiar with Ice from live. Trying to figure out what to do with the secondary. The only info on it comes from the other melee boards, and seems to boil down to "T1 attack sucks" and "Psi resist sucks". Obviously can't do anything about the T1 as it's mandatory, and resist is what it is. I chose the pairing for the -rech synergy, and because psi is new to me. (Also, costume/theme.) Does /Psi do reasonably well for a Tank? Is it truly gimped for damage by the mandatory T1 attack? And will the added -rech be appreciable, especially with Chilling Embrace running?

Thugs/Nature works ok? Or is /Nature is at its best with melee focused minions, while Thugs/ tends to stay at range til the Bruiser comes out? (I'm building from a name - managed to snag "Urban Jungle" and these two sets seemed appropriate.)

Thanks for that! I'll have to load up Mids/Pines when I get home and check it out. Much appreciated.

Your builds look really solid. Clearly lots of time and energy invested. How would you build for leveling? With only 2 attacks before 32, I can't see using this version as anything but a 50 respec, which I assume is your intention. My DM/SD just dinged 22, and is running on basic L25 IOs. Where would you suggest I go from here? The main questions being: - Tough/Weave at 24/28, or can those hold off til 28/30 (or later) & allow me to grab a "real" travel power at 24? - True Grit - slot DamRes first or Heal first? Or alternate maybe? - Deflection - slot for DamRes at all, or just Def? - At what point should I be looking at set IOs (that is to say, at what level will they provide better % than same level basic IOs)? Level 1: Shadow Punch -- 4 slots Level 1: Deflection -- 3 slots Level 2: Smite -- 4 slots Level 4: True Grit -- 3 slots Level 6: Battle Agility -- 3 slots Level 8: Siphon Life -- 3 slots Level 10: Active Defense -- 2 slots Level 12: Shadow Maul -- 3 slots Level 14: Boxing -- 1 slot Level 16: Against All Odds -- 1 slot Level 18: Dark Consumption -- 3 slots Level 20: Phalanx Fighting -- 1 slot Level 22: Combat Jumping -- 1 slot Level 2: Stamina -- 3 slots (I'm missing 1 slot - trying to go from memory at work!) Thanks in advance for any suggestions and recommendations!

Awesome, thanks!

I've never used VM before, but this seems like a good time to do it. Can someone ELI5 how they work? Once it's all downloaded into the "..\data\texture_library\ " folder, do I need to do anything special in-game to enable the overlays, or are they just turned on automagically? And do they only show up on the mini-map or will I see stuff in front of me while I'm jumping around?

Fantastic, thank you!

I've built and loaded the text files for my MM per the instructions here: https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Mastermind_Numpad_Pet_Controls (Thugs not Mercs but I figured that part out). What I want to do now is modify the Summon commands so I can actually summon my guys with just a keystroke, rather than key+click. I saw somewhere that there's a way to force a default spawn location (like 5' in front of my guy) but I can't remember where I saw it. So it would be something like divide powexec_name call thugs (command to force spawn location) Can anyone help with that? And also confirm that changing the summon command will actually do what I want it to do?

Prefacing this by stating I know how to aim a cone... I can never seem to hit more than 1 mob with Proton Sweep, even in the cramped confines of a DFB run. Lining up the same groups with Sands of Mu regularly gets 2-3 guys. Is Proton Sweep really that small and/or narrow?

I've never looked at combat attributes, so that would be why I missed it! Also found a little more info on Paragon Wiki... I'd been on the page before but apparently didn't scroll down far enough ???

Cool ideas! Is there info out there about the Staff stances' non-power-related effects? I've read that maintaining 3 stacks of Perfection of X does something passively, but I can't find specifics. The tooltip in-game didn't tell me anything, and my Google-fu is failing me badly.

Hoping to get in on this next time 'round (life got in the way this week). I have altitis so I'm happy to make a tank everywhere, tho as has been said it would be easier to stick to one server for focus purposes.

Good advice, thanks! I'm used to running my protection set guys with ALL ZE TOGGLES (was super painful on my old /dark scrapper, lemme tell ya) but it does make sense to be a little more judicious in the whats and whens of it.

That's totally fair about when to get Tough and Weave. In my travels around the boards they seem to show up pretty early in a lot of builds, tho whether those are L50 respecs or leveling builds I don't know. Guess I'll have to try it and see where it goes. I'll be into SOs by the time I'm looking at giving the Fighting pool consideration, so by then I should hopefully have a better idea of how survivable he is. Thanks again for your advice on the Staff side of things, and the helpful questions about the other parts of the build.

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I'll plug in Guarded Spin at 14. That's why I deliberately left him one pip shy of dinging last night. Re: endurance issues - at this point I have no idea how that looks. I'm basically unslotted except for the P2W damage enhancements and a couple useful DFB drops. Re: travel power - I've read in a few places that Sprint+Beast Run and the Steam Pack can be perfectly serviceable. I know my way around pretty well. What it comes down to is this: I can't see how to fit a travel power and/or early Hasten in without either pushing back the entire Fighting pool OR dropping something else from my primary/secondary OR losing out on EPP picks. Maybe I'm overvaluing Tough/Weave and they can be moved to the 40s tho? Are Brute EPP/PPPs deep enough that I'll want to make room for all tiers? Tentative re-ordering: Level 14: Guarded Spin Level 16: Ablative Carapace Level 18: Hasten/Travel Level 20: Evolving Armor Level 22: Travel/Hasten Level 24: Boxing Level 26: Innocuous Strikes Level 28: DNA Siphon Level 30: Tough ... Level 41: Weave Yes / no / maybe?

Rolled this guy up last night, he's a pip away from L14 now. Bio is very well represented on the boards, but I don't see much at all about Staff. In the interest of building to the late game with the fewest number of respecs, as well as having a build that is functional all the way up, I'm looking for advice on what to take and what is skippable out of Staff (it seems like Bio is a "take all 9" set). Here's where I'm at right now: Level 1: Mercurial Blow -- (A), (3), (11) Level 1: Hardened Carapace -- (A), (9), (13) Level 2: Precise Strike -- (A), (3), (11) Level 4: Inexhaustible -- (A), (5) Level 6: Eye of the Storm -- (A), (7), (7) Level 8: Environmental Modification -- (A), (9), (13) Level 10: Staff Mastery -- Level 12: Adaptation -- Level 1: Stamina -- (A), (5) Looking ahead, I'm looking at this pick order: Level 14: Guarded Spin [or] Boxing/Kick Level 16: Ablative Carapace Level 18: Serpent's Reach [or] Boxing/Kick Level 20: Evolving Armor Level 22: Tough Level 24: Weave Level 26: Innocuous Strikes Level 28: DNA Siphon Level 30: Hasten Level 32: Sky Splitter Level 35: Genetic Contamination Level 38: Parasitic Aura Am I way off base with any of these? It sure seems like if I want to snag the Fighting pool I have to lose either Guarded Spin or Serpent's Reach, and I don't know which one should get the axe. Or am I looking in the wrong place for the cut? Can Hasten go away or be put off? Am I missing anything that should be obvious? Thanks for any and all advice! ..cutter

Cool, I'll definitely look into /Time. I've done my share of /Dark and /Kin - trying to build with either new sets or ones I didn't get into back in the day. Don't have any dorks on Torchbearer (yet) but my altitis and name-hunting means I'll get there sooner or later. Might do that tonight while it's fresh in my mind.

Thanks for your insights, much appreciated! Prolly a stupid question but how well does /Time stack with itself? The MM is likely going to be Bots/Time. Will we be hitting overkill levels from the same powerset running twice?

Son of a Gun - Beam Rifle blaster, all sliders set to minimum to look like a child. (I really need to see if "A Gun" is taken so I can make his dad...) Hot Lead - Pistols/Thermal corruptor. Hammerdroids - Bots/Thermal MM (who, from reading this thread, apparently needs to team up with Burning Sensation...). I've got a file with plenty more names in it, but I'm trying hard to curb my alt-itis and focus on just a few characters to level up.

So while concepting a build for a support dork, I managed to snag the name Hot Lead. Pistols+Thermal seemed appropriate. I'll be running her mostly with brand new (and younger) players, so I want something that will enable their surviveability while not totally outshining them. I want them to have a positive experience that isn't standing around watching dad kill everything. I expect to be teaming with some combination of 1-2 brutes, or a brute+MM. At the same time, I want something that will be an asset to more experienced teams when the opportunity presents. And ideally able to solo reasonably well. (Oh, and while I'm at it I want a pony and a million dollars too.) I haven't seen much (anything) on /Thermal, and back in the olden days I really didn't have much to do with the squishier ATs so my exposure to the set is very limited. Based on what I've read and remember, I'm not expecting this to be the top of tier 1. But will it be underpowered and frustrating? Experiences with either set are appreciated!