Nyghtmaire

I was searching for this video to watch with my eldest kid. I let her play with supervision (make a character, run around Atlas Park) when she was 6 or so. Found the Massively OP article instead, then immediately made my way here. Joined Homecoming that day.

Agree with @Uun and @Parabola. I would likely make a defender as I have fewer (barely) of that AT (and apparently my next Corruptor is a Rad/Dark!!).

What I most enjoy about this thread is the continual return to Dark Miasma. It really has the ultimate and most widespread toolkit. This. A thousand times this. Had not concerned the benefit from rad’s secondary effect on procs. So accustomed to ignoring it except for slotting options. Clever, very clever.

Nice cheat sheet! The lowest difficulty I’ve had success with is #/x3.

I love, love, love the dark power set (dark miasma and affinity both, but I prefer miasma to affinity). -ToHit debuffs are certainly resisted by higher level mobs, more so by AVs. But with Dark Servant, the debuffs just pile up to ridiculous levels. Two sources of -regen, one of which is tied to the best rez in the game which also happens to stun and can be made into a ghetto proc bomb. The set also provides a source (2 really) of -damage and -resistance. All together, there is so much layering going. Feels safe with -ToHit, soft control in fear and slow, and helpful to any team while debuffing. Dark Miasma almost feels like a control set. While Affinity is also quite amazing, it leans more into buff side at the expense of some of those debuffs/controls. But Soul Absorption for Petrifying Gaze? Affinity wins there. PG only holds - one of the only powers in Miasma that merely does one thing. Both sets get Black Hole, the only good thing that can be said about this is the free power slot it provides since there’s almost never a reason to take it. What I mostly enjoy is the feel of being in complete control of a situation. Other debuff sets are perfectly fine. But this is the one resonates most strongly with me.

This is really tempting. Like really really. But never made a job kin of any flavor or stripe. If only there were more character slots. Oh wait…!

Regarding primaries, Ice has come a long way since Live. Big fan of Arctic Air now that it is affected by domination. Ice Slick does wonders (and has more slotting opportunities now that it can take damage sets). I prefer it paired with Thorns, but it is a solid primary now - still softish controls but with a much more solid core.

Agility adds recharge to each power. For attacks, this will reduce the chance for any procs slotted in those attacks to fire. Avoid local recharge; musculature! That’s assuming you’re building to maximize damage through proc slotting in your attacks. Check @Ston’s testing for examples of this. Essentially, slotting follows 2 A/D and 4 procs, assuming musculature core to cap damage. In addition, most if not all of the defense in Agility would be wasted as SR can reach regular softcap by sneezing twice. That really leaves endurance modification (not terrible but meh) and maybe some movement increase, something SR already has covered.

I thought the only winning move is not to play…?

I suck down inspirations whether I need ‘em or not. Like to keep them dropping so I’ll eat an orange to make room, red and/or yellow when attacking a spawn, purple if it looks hairy before I jump, and green and/or blue when running to the next group. Sometimes I eat ‘em all just because. I’m a glutton for candy. A big, fat leaf on the wind.

Is there a consensus yet as to what the new reacts mean? This comes to mind but I have no idea as to the shared meanings: * Ramen: This post makes me want to eat you. *Satellite: That’s so crazy I need to be in another gravity well to digest this *television: this post made me stupider *accordion: I wanted the smallest violin but it was already taken *Bulgaria: ??? (I’ve got nothing) *Domingator: hold me, I’m afraid

Thank you both. I’m using Consume purely as a mule for Eradication 3-piece. And yea, the recharge is toooooo long. For Hot Feet, I’ve slotted 2 Superior Avalanche (ADE and KD proc) and 2 Ice Mistral. End Reduction is the priority. I threw the Overwhelming Force proc into Cauterizing Aura. It *seems* like there is a lot of KD going on, but I really need to bite the bullet and tease out the independent, practical effects. Re Combustion vs Fire Sword Circle, I’m enjoying the slightly faster cast time of the former. Movement is so key that shaving even a bit - a fraction of a second — adds that little bit more towards survival likelihood. I agree though regarding use of Burn (and little need for a PBAOE at lower levels) - that really shines. Overall, I enjoy how many useful powers there are in both sets, leading to meaningful choices and exciting cost-benefit analysis. Thanks again!

Next week I’m running “Corruptor Week” where I only play this AT. I have a couple, only one at max level (cold/dark/dark). Also have a dark/dark/soul, beam/thermal/XX, and electric/nature/mu at various stages of leveling/altitis. What is the quintessential Corruptor? The purest experience of Corruptor-dom? Teaming + solo. The one that can do it all. Because of my schedule, I mainly solo and join random pigs of dubious quality. And to be honest, the worse the pug the better. Masochism and build elegance goes hand in hand. What is the BAMF Corruptor - and I don’t mean teleport… (p.s. dark/dark already entices me. It’s the tits.)

This week is “Scrapper Week.” (To generate focus, I’m trying out only playing a specific AT each week. Promotes respecs I’ve been putting off and - hopefully - a deeper understanding of the various ATs. The latter is debatable) I have a long-standing (and arbitrary, unfair) distaste towards scrappers in favor of brutes. But after this week, along with a proper placement of the ATO, I’m cooling on that bullshit. So, been playing my first scrapper on homecoming , a psi/shield/mu beast. Also my mid-level stone/dark/soul. Got that one up to pick a PPP finally. And rolled a new martial arts/Fire armor to run through Gold Side. This last one was in homage to the first scrapper I ever made on Live…one which was quickly abandoned somewhere in Kings Row because I couldn’t stand blue side missions and ambience. Red side best side, etc… The main lesson I’ve learned from this process: a fortuitous macro can change a character from meh to badass. Adding a target location macro for shield charge completely sped up the feel and gave me that feeling of scrapper-lock I’d been chasing since Homecoming came back online. Hallelujah! Next week is “Corruptor Week” so all this will change at the stroke of midnight EST Sunday (the week prior was “Blaster Week”). But for this week, I love all three of my scrappers as if they are the second coming.

The meta is boring. Rather, it’s a known quantity; building for it is rather straightforward (mainly because so many players have crunches the numbers, run the comparisons, collected the data, tested the hypothesis, etc. etc etc. and shared here and on Discord). And really, it’s rare anyone needs to build that way. And it sure ain’t to run Council radios in PI. One tricked-out character renders the remainder of the team superfluous - that ain’t a storm/ thing, it’s a “clever use of building and game mechanics” thing. Like the set? Play the set. Don’t like the set? Play something else.

I agree about your Life Drain conclusion. It’s the power to drop on any tight Necro build if the secondary has any sort of self-heal (Kin, dark, and rad all spring to mind). I have *no* experience with Empathy at all (so offer no opinion), and haven’t run a pain or thermal with Necro. But I would likely take it on the latter two, at least with an accuracy (or A/D HO) and theft of essence proc.

I doubt the difference between 33% and 45% would be that significant once you consider the local damage slotting and ED. I’m on my phone at a bar so not in the correct space to do the math, but *eyeballs some hazy numbers* the difference looks small…

These puns/jokes win! And you know else likes cones? @Snarky likes cones! This is a seriously fun concept. Slow leveling a widow so this gives some cool ideas. Thank you for sharing. You should certainly Take a Bow. Would you consider switching your Alpha to Intuition Radial for the damage and range boost for even MOAR range (in addition to marginally useful boosts to slows and defense debuffs; the hold boost does nothing for you, sadly)

I don’t quite understand this contention. It’s quite possible I’m missing something, but it looks like against even one target Soul Drain is still superior to Build Up. * Soul Drain is a 30 second, 50% damage buff that can be made perma with a recharge-focus build. 2.508 arcanatime. Every additional mob increases the bonus by 10%. * Build Up is a 10 second, 100% damage buff that cannot be made permanent under any circumstances, even with external buffs capping global recharge. 1.33 arcanatime. For the same 30 seconds Soul Drain is active, Build Up would be equivalent to 33% +damage. Both can slot the Gaussian proc. The gulf between the two widens the closer Soul Drain is to permanent. I suppose a relevant question is what opportunity cost there is from the longer Soul Drain cast time. But a higher recharge build to take advantage of Soul Drain also increases the likelihood of needing a filler attack (Siphon Life). Certainly attack chain-dependent. /stone would make a sweet pairing with the recharge bonus from Minerals (likewise /SR, /EA, /Elec, and /Rad). Not arguing that Dark Melee’s attacks don’t lack a certain something. But Soul Drain is kinda baller in design. Again happy to learn if I’m missing something.

Same (except for the backstory and M+A softcapping)! I’ll have to juice the build when I get back to this character. That softcapping is great goal.

Can’t get the hold from /dark and runs afoul of the design goals. But yeah, /dark’s Soul Drain has that sweet, sweet lower recharge. Though really a shame to skip Power Boost. Really great when things get hairy. Congrats @Snarky. It’s a helluva pairing. I hope you took Howling Twilight to stun your prey (and NOT to rez teammates - make sure it’s always on cooldown so you don’t inadvertently help someone)!

I have two: 1. Earth/Sonic controller. It’s a challenging combo to build for. If you proc, there is very little to build with for global recharge and defenses. And if you focus on either or both defenses and/or recharge, damage potential is limited. The pet is single target-focused so it’s slow going regardless taking mobs down 1 by 1. But damn, Earth controls everything! And thematically, the pairing is enticing. Takes a delicate build approach. And for a controller, it has surprising depths and synergies if one is prepared to take a left-field approach. 2. dark/dark blaster - apparently, consensus is that this comb works (if at all) in opposition to one another. Never understood it in practice: *feels* so good to play.

That was awesome! I loved the ambiance from the musical cues and the villain design. Story? Totally engaging. Well done! 1. Got me to play with sound on - a first for Homecoming. 2. Damn bassoons - those are sneaky bastards.

I’ll give this a stab. Taunt is not *needed* but it does some useful things. My preferred use is to taunt mobs who are staying out of melee range (and my taunt aura), slotting or blasting at range. Taunt reduces the mobs’ range, forcing them to run to you and moving them onto the threat table. Second use is to snap threat to you from a mob attacking a squishy teammate. You’re correct about the small group number and value of punchvoke/auras. A useful way to think about it is a control power- moving mobs from far away to nearby when you already have most of the group already attending to you. Not an early use power. More something to toss out when most (but not everyone) is already focused on you. If there are more than 5 targeting you, better to hop over — dragging what is still pasted to you on your threat table. So, more useful for a small group that just wants to shoot you instead of punching you. For slotting, depends. Base slot is more than fine. Decent mule for Mocking Beratement if you’re building for typed defenses, recharge, and S/L resists. Shield builds positional defense so there are probably better powers to 6-slot. Not a terrible power! But not great as the recharge is so long (120 seconds), damage is low, and while it take a FFB proc, it doesn’t give me in the way of functional global recharge, instead competing with the lock out time for other FFB procs from your stone powers. Rule of Cool though. If it makes your character cooler to you, it’s the perfect power for your needs. As an alternative for bouncing around to multiple groups, try combat teleport. Can use multiple times per engagement, and opens up the teleport power pool if you’re inclined to work towards Fold Space (excellent tanking power). While it doesn’t do damage, mobs will now be in your Against All Odds aura.

Necro/dark MM. it was the character with whom I first experienced the game. My bars are set up essentially the same as they were however many years ago, feeling comfortable in the muscle memory. It can do it anything the game throws at it (except have not figured out how to manage the new massive difficulty TFs). But not too bothered - I mainly solo, but specially on MMs. My pace, my kill-all (it’s always a kill-all) - a habit developed from the original City of Villains structure. Also, I spent more time tinkering with builds, trying different configurations, even to the point of running multiple builds back on Live. When the game shut down, I forgot most of my other characters as the years flipped by like a faded Rolodex. But always remembered the original costume, the story/biography, and the final build. For a while, I would dream of editing the build in Mids. Being able to level her again on Homecoming was a hard, joyful experience. I don’t play her as much now, maybe once every 2-3 weeks. But this character is like a favorite pair of jeans and the softest t-shirt with a faded band logo from a show seen long ago.