How to make a build - maths and Mids?

[Mashugana]

Is there a guide to the numbers I am shooting for when I make a build in Mids?

 

People keep saying to plan my builds in Mids but I have no guidelines.  Are there certain goals you want for all characters (e.g. always get S/L Res to a certain number, always get global recharge to a certain number)?  Are there specific numbers for roles (e.g. melee damage characters want X, Domintors always want Y for Permadom).

 

Thanks for any advice 🙂

[arcane]

No guidelines. People here will probably try to convince you of some soft guidelines like 45% ranged or s/l defense, 5 lotg’s, or something like that, but we can assure you from experience there is no such thing as a mandatory power or even a mandatory IO. 
 

That being said I would personally never ever skip the procs from gladiator’s armor, steadfast protection, panacea, miracle, preventive medicine, or performance shifter.

[Snarky]

So, some of it depends on your AT and build goals.  Perma Dom and Perma Hasten are standard yet easy to screw up your thinking on if you are not algebraically inclined.  

 

Standard thinking, softcap Defense.  "Softcap" means 45% defense.  THis is the effective top defense in standard play.  200% Def is the same as 45% defense.  so, softcap.  (200 is better, if you get hit with -5% def you laugh.  with 200 you can get hit with -155% and laugh. )

 

Incarnate "softcap" is....65% ?  i think.  (not much reason to chase it, Leagues are raining Defense auras and Incarnate shields on each other)

 

Building a Tank (anything really but anything Tanky) Defense is greater than resistance is greater than heals.    It gets deep fast because Resist based Tanks do not have defense debuff resist, so even if you softcap the defense something like Cimerora enemies just shred it.  Can make it more complicated with Dark Armor, (A resist set) that uses two mezze auras and is semi stealthed.  Build goals shift depending on playstyle and power picks.  very deep very fast.

 

Softcapping one area S/L is generally considered smart.  S/L is part of "most" enemies attacks.  and all attacks look at every aspect of the attack "ranged/AoE/melee/ S/l, Energy Fire" and chooses your highest Defense against it.  I have Ranged Blasters who just use Ranged Defense.  And I try to S/L softcap all my melee if at all possible.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Snarky

[Yomo Kimyata]

Hey man--

You'll honestly do just fine if you play organically.  I never plan my builds in Mids until I ding 50, and by then I know what is and isn't working.

For melee characters, I'll focus on my primary armor (defense or dam resist) until the hard or soft cap, then usually the other, and finally some sort of healing. 

Ping me with any specific questions.

[Ironblade]

3 hours ago, Mashugana said:

Is there a guide to the numbers I am shooting for when I make a build in Mids?

No.  And you don't need a guide.  As someone pointed out, a lot of people will say to shoot for 45% defense.  Unless I'm building a character that starts with significant defense, I don't pay any attention to defense at all.  Some people feel you need Hasten on every character.  I have it on TWO (and I have 12 level 50's).

 

What you really, REALLY don't need is someone else telling you how to build your characters.  Build them however you want.  If you find problems with it, you can respec, start over, whatever.  If you use someone else's build (or their guidance), you're building for the way THEY play.  Learn on your own how the characters and powersets FEEL and you'll know what YOU should build for.

 

Having said that, it's fair to say that some powersets come with caveats.  For example, a Dark Armor character is probably going to run A LOT of toggles.  You'll need to consider how to mitigate that (i.e. extra Recovery).  A Dominator is much better if you can achieve perma-Domination - it's their key power.  So it's a good idea to read some general commentary about the powers you're considering, but you really don't want someone else's blueprint.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Ironblade

[DSorrow]

One of my favorite things about CoH is that unlike in most MMOs, pretty much everyone runs around with their own build instead of a copy pasted cookie cutter. Anything made with some common sense is (i.e. slot attacks for damage, low frequency game changers for recharge, etc.) is viable, and with full IO sets you're going to be more powerful than the game is designed for even if your build wasn't designed by a Mids' PhD.

 

Having said that, there are a couple of generic bonuses I usually look for when making builds:

 

• Recharge: most builds will have some big powers that normally can't be used that often, but going for +Recharge changes that. This might be a case of an AoE control with 90 seconds base cooldown you'd like to use every spawn or just a regular attack with 20 seconds cooldown you'd like to use more frequently as a part of your attack chain. Basically any build benefits from global recharge, and many IO sets can give it to you, so it's very easy to get in moderate amounts regardless of what other bonuses you're going for.
• Defense / Resistance: For melee ATs, these are typically quite important, for squishies they're especially useful if you like to play solo or in smaller teams at high difficulties. Rule of the thumb: on melee ATs stack whatever your build already has for best returns (+Res bonuses for Resistance based sets), on squishies go for Defense. As far as typings go, everyone likes S/L/E as they are the most common damage types dealt by NPCs in the game, but a squishy might get more mileage out of Ranged Def (or no Def at all) if your playstyle keeps you out of harm's way.
• Damage procs: quite simply, doing more damage is always useful.

 

Then there are all sorts of incidental set bonuses like +maxHP, +Accuracy and +Recovery that are useful to all builds, but you'll usually get an appreciable amount of all of these if you slot 5/6 or 6/6 IO sets, which is typical for anyone chasing +Rech.

 

How to pick what you want to focus on? There isn't any one-size-fits-all solution for this, but usually I find it helpful to start with what I want my character to be able to do. If I want to run a specific attack chain or have a long recharge buff effect perma, it's pretty simple to figure out how much +Recharge I need. If I want to solo AVs or do something else that requires significant survivability, then I'll need to look for sets that provide me with +Res or +Def that add up to some neat milestone. If I want to do max damage, then I'll have to look how many damage procs I can cram into my attacks while still having them slotted for enough +Acc and +Rech that I actually hit things and can run an attack chain. And the list continues as far as you can imagine different flavors.

 

Once you've picked all the flavors you want, then it's just a matter of finding the right balance as you can only fit so many scoops of ice cream in your bowl. The good thing is, though, whatever you pick, it's still ice cream so it's going to be good.

Edited February 2, 2021 by DSorrow

[Parabola]

Others have covered some of the individual areas to look at above. My advice on top of that would be look at lots of other people's builds and try to work out what they were trying to achieve and how they went about it. After a while you will develop your own set of priorities and a style of putting a build together, I never use someone else's build but I do find useful ideas in them that I then apply to my own.

 

One thing probably worth mentioning is that while building for recharge and defence it can be easy to forget about endurance management. I've seen plenty of builds that have really impressive numbers until I've realised they were totally unsustainable (or at least would be if I tried to play them). Again though only experience can tell you what numbers you will want to shoot for. As a general rule of thumb I want at least 2eps net gain before endurance procs like performance shifter or panacea are factored in but that will vary depending on powersets.

[nihilii]

55 minutes ago, parabola said:

I've seen plenty of builds that have really impressive numbers until I've realised they were totally unsustainable (or at least would be if I tried to play them).

I think it's safe to assume if you run into a build that looks like it's unsustainable, the build is planned around Ageless. I doubt anyone plays builds that are actually unsustainable, because, I mean... the builds would be literally unplayable!

My builds very often end up barely above parity with EPS, so their toggles don't drop. Then Ageless takes care of actions.

[Parabola]

21 minutes ago, nihilii said:

I think it's safe to assume if you run into a build that looks like it's unsustainable, the build is planned around Ageless. I doubt anyone plays builds that are actually unsustainable, because, I mean... the builds would be literally unplayable!

My builds very often end up barely above parity with EPS, so their toggles don't drop. Then Ageless takes care of actions.

I'm sure you are right. I'm not really an end game player for reasons I've gone on about at length in game balance discussions so I always view incarnates as add ons rather than fundamental pieces of build functionality. If I can't make a build function to my satisfaction at all levels I tend not to play it. Sometimes that means making choices that are likely suboptimal from an incarnated lv50 point of view but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

 

This is where the point about individual building style comes in. We all have our own priorities which makes giving general build advice very difficult.

[Grouchybeast]

It's very hard to make generally applicable guides for CoX that also have specific numbers, because not only are the ATs very different, but the powersets within the ATs can be almost as varied as the ATs themselves.

 

Honestly, what I do when I want to make a build is download a few from the appropriate build forum, and look at what they're doing.  That in itself needs some experience, though, but it can give you a general idea of what people think the character will benefit from in terms of building up set bonuses, avoiding certain powers etc.

 

Caveats for this:

- If the build includes Incarnate powers, then it might be very unbalanced without them.  I always turns those off, because I like to use sets as early as possible and I don't PL, so until I reach level 50 I don't think about Incarnate powers.  However, it might mean that I need to consider what those Incarnate powers were doing (recharge, end) and make sure the character still works without them.

- If the build needs a lot of Purples (which can only be slotted at 50) or uses a lot of Superior sets (which can only be Catalysed at 50) I will find substitutes to use while I'm levelling.  If I decide I really enjoy the character and want to keep playing them after level 50, I might make another super shiny build later.

- I don't just dismiss a power because most people don't take it.  If your goal is min-max efficiency, no worries, but forums builds can sometimes miss out fun powers that are less efficient.

 

If you want to start from scratch, then I would say that the starting point is to consider the character's strengths and weaknesses.  Look through the powers.  Is it an end-heavy set?  If it's a squishy AT, do you still want/need to be able to be in melee a lot?  Does it have a lot of long-recharge powers you need to have up as often as possible?  Is there a specific click power you want to have available all the time, for which you'll need a specific amount of recharge?

 

How you play is also hugely important.  If you team almost all the time, then that's very different to if you like to solo a lot.  If you like to PL to 50 and then build from there, that's very different to wanting to play story arcs to 50 with no double XP.

 

@Yomo Kimyatahas written a brilliant guide to using IOs while levelling, which is also a brilliant guide to what IOs are available, and which ones are especially useful at which levels.  Worth a read if you want to get a feel for what you can do.

 

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, parabola said:

Others have covered some of the individual areas to look at above. My advice on top of that would be look at lots of other people's builds and try to work out what they were trying to achieve and how they went about it. After a while you will develop your own set of priorities and a style of putting a build together, I never use someone else's build but I do find useful ideas in them that I then apply to my own.

 

One thing probably worth mentioning is that while building for recharge and defence it can be easy to forget about endurance management. I've seen plenty of builds that have really impressive numbers until I've realised they were totally unsustainable (or at least would be if I tried to play them). Again though only experience can tell you what numbers you will want to shoot for. As a general rule of thumb I want at least 2eps net gain before endurance procs like performance shifter or panacea are factored in but that will vary depending on powersets.

My Farmer is like this.  There is a built in solution.  Which is why I bring it up.  Every powerset and combination of powersets changes your build options and goals.

 

My Farmer is a Dark/Fire Brute built for Damage and Recharge.  This leaves it woefully short on Endurance.  But both Dark and Fire have PBAoE Endurance recovery powers.  And the build is high recharge.  You just gotta keep pumping the thing up like a bagpipe!

[EmmySky]

I play my toon with common IOs.  Or empty. 

 

Even if I PL to skip a few levels I make sure to have plenty of playtime to see how the powers work and what I like or dont like.  Also to note holes.

 

At 50, I will open mids and start a basic build.  I have standard slotting I use for stamina and health, then start adding slots to other things focusing on their strong suit.  Once all slots are placed I switch to totals so I can see the numbers and I start filling the slots.  I usually give the most slots to defence or healing or whatever their strength is.  I look for set bonuses to fill the holes I found while playing.  

 

Once done with build in mids, I spend way too much time carefully buying the enh from AH and usually manage to screw it up somehow.

[Mashugana]

Thanks everyone - this is amazingly helpful 🙂

[Mashugana]

How does this look for a general guide:

 

Start with this and then see where the endurance, recharge, defense, and damage holes might be:

1. Try to softcap S/L at 45%
2. If ranged then try to softcap Ranged Defense at 45%
3. Try to softcap Melee Defense at 45%
4. If you have a lot of toggles then get +Recovery high
5. Get Global Recharge low for long attacks to come up more often (look to IO set bonuses)
6. Useful procs for all characters:
   1. Panacea Proc
   2. Miracle Proc
   3. Numina Proc
   4. Perf Shift Proc
   5. Perf Shift End
   6. Power Transfer End
   7. Power Transfer Health
   8. Glad Armor +3% Def
   9. Steadfast +3% Def
   10. Shield Wall +5%
   11. Reactive Def Scale Damage Resist
   12. 5 LotG if possible

Did I miss any of your favorites like Blessing of Zepher or Karma?

 

Thanks agian guys 🙂

[SuperPlyx]

Impervious Skin : Status Resistance...is a great Unique and actually gives more regen that a Numina on top of the status resistance 

[Omega Force]

It's redundant to softcap SL, ranged, and melee unless you're a defense armor.

 

In general, I try to softcap ranged defense and hardcap SL resistance on my squishies.  For armored toons, I first hardcap their resistance or softcap their defenses, depending on if it's a resist or defense armor.  Then I try to reach the other limit (defense on a resist set or resist on a defense set.)  Lastly I try to maximize their recovery, regen, and recharge.

[Hedgefund]

Unbreakable Guard +HP may not be on my "must have for every build" list but it's just a notch below.  Certainly if I'm 4-slotting UG (which is typical), I'll make sure to include that unique.

 

Oh and Winter's Gift is similar.  I probably include it on about 1/2 my builds.  I tend to put -kb in a travel power but if I don't need kb protection, I'll go with the slow (which includes recharge) resist.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Hedgefund

[Ukase]

Opinions will certainly vary. Some builds lend themselves to aiming for max recharge for a permanent power, like Dull Pain, Hasten, Domination or Overgrowth, etc. 

But I'm inclined to agree with Yomo's comment above. When you first start your character, clearly you "need" everything - more hitpoints (health), more recovery, more damage, more defense, etc. 

As I play, with the attacks I have, I notice when I want to start my attack chain if a power isn't recharged. I make a note to get more recharge. 
I notice if I'm running out of endurance, I make a note to find a way to either reduce the endurance I use (end reduction enhancement in a power that uses the most, or pursue a set bonus that will either increase endurance points or increase recovery, or gives an endurance discount) 

If I notice I'm dying or taking more damage than I think I should (it is rarely the case early on. Only when you get greedy by setting the difficulty too high, too soon, or are on a team with a team that isn't playing well together should this happen in the early levels) then I think about defense. Or, if not defense, then something that debuffs ToHit on the npcs, so I get hit less, which is the same as defense. 

Mids is an excellent tool. But often a newer player sees a build and wants to try it - but the build is meant for a level 50, complete with incarnate powers. And it may be an excellent build at level 50 +3, but at level 16, it may truly suck, because the player that made the build had no intention of ever playing it at lower levels. Perhaps they didn't take a travel power until level 49, and it was an afterthought even then. What's worse, is some builds on these forums are for someone's unconventional playstyle and may be great for them, but for most other players, they're not so good. 

I've a buddy in the sg - he uses recovery serum from p2w during his character's entire career. Even at 50+3, he uses that temp power. He doesn't want to waste a slot in stamina. That's him. But if others were to use his build and not use the temp, they'd be suffering and likely not having much fun. He's not wrong to do this. Nor does my not doing it wrong. 

It's just different. There's no wrong way, but there are agreed on optimal ways to build a character - but those ways vary greatly. 
Some make it a rule of thumb to always fit a Glad armor 3% def (all), a steadfast Protection 3% def (all), a shield wall 5% res (all), an unbreakable guard 7.5% max hp, kismet 6% accuracy (really it's a toHit bonus) and a perf shifter +end, Numina +regen/recovery, Miracle + recovery and Panacea +HP/Endurance. 

Some aim for all of those and at least one winter set. Some aim for all of those and 5 purple sets, and 5 luck of the gambler 7.5% global recharge. There's a zillion ways to make the same character! Make one organically, and adjust your slots as you go. Respecs are fairly easy to get. For free every 10 levels. Can buy them from the AH for 1 million, or possibly less. Experiment. Enjoy the puzzle. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

 

 

@Yomo Kimyatahas written a brilliant guide to using IOs while levelling, which is also a brilliant guide to what IOs are available, and which ones are especially useful at which levels.  Worth a read if you want to get a feel for what you can do.

 

Aw shucks.

 

 

[Ura Hero]

Sometimes I will plan a build from scratch.  Other times I am lazy.  I head over to the Archetypes section and look for something that seems like what I want, then I tweak it to get it where I want it.  Nothing wrong with either approach.  If you are new, tweaking an existing build to get numbers you want is much easier than trying to do it from scratch.  Once you have done a few build tweaks and you get an idea for what IO's do what, building from scratch becomes much easier.

 

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/43-archetypes/

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 hours ago, nihilii said:

I think it's safe to assume if you run into a build that looks like it's unsustainable, the build is planned around Ageless. I doubt anyone plays builds that are actually unsustainable, because, I mean... the builds would be literally unplayable!

My builds very often end up barely above parity with EPS, so their toggles don't drop. Then Ageless takes care of actions.

You'd think.... but I've seen the builds and seen them in action. There's a whole lotta players out there that don't consider end-sustainability as important because they mostly team and can just slow their roll to get end back.

 

To the OP, there is only one proper way to design character builds. MY WAY! ALL OTHER WAYS ARE WRONG AND USELESS!!!

 

Editor's Note: the above statement has no relation to reality and should be taken completely as the a joke it was intended.

[arcane]

I see many people doing exactly what I predicted and promoting soft capped defense across the board. Let me clarify: I have soft capped characters, and I have more offensively powerful characters with ~20% defense. I have zero problems surviving on the latter type in endgame content if I play my character mindfully and appropriately. So please please please take this soft capping trend with a grain of salt and build in a way that works for you.

[Shred Monkey]

I'll try to keep this brief (the reality is, it is FAR from brief).

 

I usually start a toon in a spreadsheet building attack chains.  This tells me the recharge I need and powers to select.  It tells me if I need hasten or not.  It tells me if I'm attacking from melee or ranged.  It tells me how many damage procs I can fit in.  Once all that is established, I open up mids and try to make a survivable build that runs that attack chain.  Generally if I can't achieve a minimum level of survivability while running my planned attack chain, I don't make the toon.

 

Other times I start with a minimum level of survivability in Mids, and then I get the attack chain spreadsheet out and try to maximize damage output with the left over slots and powers.  If the damage output stinks, I don't make the toon.

 

If all that ends up with me satisfied, I will then calculate my initial attack chain.  I do a level 22 builds and attack chain.  And usually another level 32 or 37 build and attack chain that gets me though to level 50.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Shred Monkey

[Bill Z Bubba]

14 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

I usually start a toon in a spreadsheet building attack chains. 

I'm in this camp as well. Attack chain above all. Do I have the recharge to feed it and get any pauses covered or at least extremely minimized? Do I have the end to back it up for constant nonstop carnage from the moment I enter the fight until it's over? Does it look good while I'm doin it?

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, Mashugana said:

• Try to softcap S/L at 45%
• If ranged then try to softcap Ranged Defense at 45%
• Try to softcap Melee Defense at 45%

 

Looks good other than this, for the following reasons:

 

1) Most Melee attacks have some Smash or Lethal component to them, so if you soft-cap S/L then you don't really need to worry about Melee.

2) If you're a ranged character and softcap Ranged D, then AoE D is next in importance, because regardless of whether an attack is Smashing, Psionic, or whatever, it will have to go through one of those defenses. Don't worry about S/L unless you're like a Blaster or Dominator and have a mix of melee and ranged attacks.

3) If you do get Ranged D high for a ranged character, it's better to back it up with a Resistance-based armor from the Epic pools, not one of the S/L Defense shields. This is because adding S/L defense against a Ranged attack is superfluous if you already have good Ranged D, but adding some resistance for those attacks that DO hit will be more helpful.