Returning player, considering which characters to offer to bring for 4* content

[EnjoyTheJourney]

After more than a year away, my knowledge about 4* content is not particularly deep and my experiences have been very limited. Also, criteria for recruiting / building 4* capable teams is still somewhat of a mystery for me. Thus, picking characters to offer to bring along is a bit of a barrier for me when thinking about asking to join 4* teams.

 

Trying to match characters I enjoy playing with the characters / builds 4* team leaders may (or may not?) want on their team, a handful of character builds have come to mind, as outlined below ...

 

electric / SR / mu sentinel

 

Debuffs include vulnerability and endurance drain. Barrier T4 and ageless radial T4 destiny available. Obviously not a fire blaster with a 16 target cap for AOEs. But, nuke is up every 23 seconds without external speed buffs and has high DPA, quick recharging AOEs beyond the nuke, with single target damage of about 300 DPS based on pylon testing done that follows the usual pylon testing rules. Quite durable.

 

earth control / ice assault / fire mastery dominator

 

Debuffs include strong -defense, strong -movement speed, noticeable -recharge, and melt armor with a 20% -res proc. Minor -to hit debuff from earthquake. Quicksand isn't needed or used every spawn. But, when helpful it provides an autohit -def debuff and movement debuff that is made stronger by a slotted D-Synch deceleration IO and by intuition radial alpha. With domination active, without power up active, and without external speed buffs stalagmites is about 2 seconds shy of being perma against +3 mobs. Very strong on AOE controls overall. A high mag single target hold is useful against hostless nictus. Has single target damage of close to 300 DPS based on pylon testing done that follows the usual pylon testing rules. AOE is probably not as high as many other 4* characters. But, it is still noticeable with one AOE damage toggle and two other AOEs. Has T3 barrier destiny currently (T4 soon) and good defenses overall.

 

 

illusion control / poison / psi mastery controller

 

Regen debuffs are not the strength of poison, but key helpful debuffs are otherwise very strong. Spectral terror allows for control and substantial -to hit against ranged mobs. Phants are 0.6 seconds from perma without external speed buffs, they taunt and damage enemies, they're nigh unkillable, and they apparently distract hostless nictus aspects from targeting player characters (or so I've heard). Single target damage is about 360 based on pylon testing done that follows usual pylon testing rules. AOE is not high overall, even though without external speed buffs a proc'd up poison trap does about 330ish damage about every 18 seconds or thereabouts.

 

 

Two other build concepts that I don't yet have fully developed in-game characters for at the moment are a seismic blast / force fields / power mastery corruptor and a poison / fire blast / mu mastery defender. Not sure how welcome they might be on a 4* team. 

 

Thank you in advance for insights offered.

Edited September 4, 2023 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Meknomancer]

Most 4* content is run at speed now, so knowing the maps well (especially on aeon) is a good place to start, try running a few solo to see how you do on low rep, its not too difficult with a decent build. Priority toons tend to be kins and colds for support, sometimes nature or empathy if theres room on the team. If you've been keeping up with forum posts you may have seen some all blaster runs which will point you in the direction of what most teams want- massive dps. A good tank is essential and t4 barriers/rebirths/possibly a single incandes for ghosting are the goto destinies, often you'll see an offtank, especially for the aeon fight vs the vanguard crew to get mobile dummy accolade with 1 person handling hero 1 although i've seen some great tanks take them all at once.

 

In 4* content hanging at the back tends to get you killed as you miss out on all the buffs firing off and the enemies can be seriously tough, you don't want to get stuck solo with any unless your able to put out huge burst damage, debuffs are ridiculous and you'll find yourself faceplanting before you know what hit you. I haven't tried any sents yet (i do have an elec/sr too) if i did i'd go /bio or /rad. Bio gets the extra dps and rad has the extra procced out nuke. Domi's are good for the last fight on 4*itf, on aeon your better off with a plant for all the mobs, the ability to chuck out the confuse/immob/creepers really speeds things up and its all about how fast you can take out mobs, the av fights there's usually the cold corr and kin and all the blasters so you don't have to worry about those so much. I have an ill/poison and i'm uncertain about its ability to survive or how useful it would be, debuffs are fantastic but your permanently over the aggro cap, PA won't cover you, your totally reliant on getting heals off someone else by playing in melee (and melee is where you'll be getting debuffed to bits) and it can be quite squishy-on 4* stuff its 1 shot and your dead and venemous will draw aggro to you. Might have to try it and see how it goes, its always a fun play.

 

Bubbles/dark fenders seem popular good buffs and some - to hit, don't see a lot of seismic (did you slot for 0 kb? )

Yet to run my poison/fire fender through, can't even remember which server its on, again i'd have high expectations of squish squish.

 

If i were you i'd check out some other threads, theres a lot of players asked the same question, whats best for 4* content?

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Thank you for your reply.

 

I've run a couple of 4* ITFs and they were a lot of fun. They were both successful runs with few deaths. But, the teams' success definitely wasn't because of me or my characters. Rather, those teams were led by people who knew what they were doing and they gave good advice which I followed as best I could. 

My sense before posting was that the character builds I listed above might be more or less "swimming against the tide" when it comes to getting recruited to 4* runs. Implicitly what you're confirming is that none of the characters listed, except perhaps the bubbler, are likely to be highly valued on 4* runs. Which is fine. I simply won't ask to join 4* runs as all the preferred character types happen to be the kind I don't enjoy playing. Plus, taking up team leaders' time with requests to join with characters they're not that interested in having on the team seems a bit inappropriate. 

 

All good in the end. I'll just run other content instead. There are plenty of other fun options available beyond 4* runs. 

[Meknomancer]

On 9/5/2023 at 4:04 PM, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Thank you for your reply.

 

I've run a couple of 4* ITFs and they were a lot of fun. They were both successful runs with few deaths. But, the teams' success definitely wasn't because of me or my characters. Rather, those teams were led by people who knew what they were doing and they gave good advice which I followed as best I could. 

My sense before posting was that the character builds I listed above might be more or less "swimming against the tide" when it comes to getting recruited to 4* runs. Implicitly what you're confirming is that none of the characters listed, except perhaps the bubbler, are likely to be highly valued on 4* runs. Which is fine. I simply won't ask to join 4* runs as all the preferred character types happen to be the kind I don't enjoy playing. Plus, taking up team leaders' time with requests to join with characters they're not that interested in having on the team seems a bit inappropriate. 

 

All good in the end. I'll just run other content instead. There are plenty of other fun options available beyond 4* runs. 

 

No reason to give up on the toons, theres always going to be 4* runs where players will have what they need for success with places available and you can just join with whatever and have fun. My post above was just to point out what specifically gets picked first to make sure teams don't wipe and can complete it, not to put you off using them.

[Zect]

To be eligible for a 4* you need to be able to work as a team.

 

I find CoH players as a whole are very bad at this, because the game is so easy it doesn't ask for cooperation, and historically both the most lucrative activities and epeen-stroking activities have been solo stuff - marketing, AE farming, and things like no insps no temps soloing of TF's/AV's (which are even designated team content). So it breeds inflated egos with the whole "I don't need you, you're not the master of me, I won't let anyone tell me what to do, I can't take any criticism" attitude.

 

If you can generally follow orders, and as long as your build plays to its expected strengths and isn't something completely stupid like a cold corr skipping the shields, you will be welcome regardless of AT. There isn't a long line of people waiting to do 4* (the rewards are lackluster and not comparable to farming unless you speed it at least somewhat) so most pugs will just be happy to fill the group.

 

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Thank you both for the feedback. 

Based on these last two responses, a misperception on my part seems to have emerged at some point. I thought 4* runs filled fairly quickly, in general, and that the process of being accepted into one would be more selective than feedback here suggests -- as long as certain core build types that are needed are present, which is an understandable prerequisite for broadening selection criteria for remaining slots on a team. 

 

If teammates and team leaders are OK with the kinds of characters I'd enjoy playing then that's a preferred situation. Challenge runs are a lot of fun and actually working together as a team at least sometimes is also welcome.