Icesphere builds

[icesphere]

Hello, I have been an avid player of City of Heroes Homecoming since April 29th 2020 and have been playing regularly since. I have made hundreds of characters and have tried out as many powers as I can aside from mostly Masterminds and Warshades. I have tried my hand at making builds, but had a very low understanding of the game mechanics and was just sort of winging it. Thanks to the very helpful folks from this community I have learned and expanded my own understanding of the game and my playstyle has changed alongside my builds to better help with my performance as a player. I have seen a lot of people reaching out on discord and have tried to give them assistance on power picks, why I chose them and why my builds are set up in their own way. It was suggested to me that I should create a dropbox for those looking for builds whether they just wanted something that was going to do well on paper, what powers were selected or skipped or maybe just to see other ways people used their enhancements on certain powers for a different point of view. The ones below in the dropbox only go back as far as October of 2023 because I am always trying to learn and sometimes I will pick up new ways of building and that was as early as I can recall my builds needing to be where I wanted them. Either way, I finally went ahead and created a dropbox that is available for all to look through and download onto their Mids Reborn file.

My builds tend to lean into what the respective Archetypes are while also trying to make them viable for damage. Such as tankers trying to hit key survival number whether they are geared towards resists, so I am for resists and HP due to no defense debuff resists, or particular defensive softcaps for those needed to be defensive sound. All this while trying to have survival where it needs to be, without going overkill, and then focusing on damage usually as to not make people feel like they are stuck to one role and they can help the team with added DPS. The builds are typically named as their archetype following the powers selected, however, some have some notes after that to specify if they are made for someone specifically at the time or if they were created with caveats (more range def, farmers, ECT). And of course feel free to message me on discord if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you all for your time and hope to meet you in Paragon!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/hwx82vd3r8hrdog2qpz2s/h?rlkey=3r5ul8przukc2sx69udgb6ed7&dl=0

Edited February 27 by icesphere

[Rythgen]

I'll vouch for the quality of Icesphere's builds as well as his willingness to help anyone with just about anything. Meta, theme, safety blanket of capped resists and defenses, doesn't matter, Icesphere has you covered.

[Nerrai1]

This is awesome, thanks for doing this.  I found a shield/SS tanker build you had posted in Discord around October last year.  Do you have that one saved? I didn't see it in the dropbox. I've been trying to work out what all the enhancements are but have been unsuccessful.

[icesphere]

I do, should be in there as I posted my builds through October of last year

[Saidra]

Thank you for doing all of this 😃 

[brysolo]

Any chance you’ve done a radM/iceA scrapper build?

[chuckv3]

I guess he doesn't do tankers? Oh well. I wanted to check the build I keep tweaking against someone else's work.

[icesphere]

I have plenty of tankers in there, just may have to scroll down further or just hit me up in the HC discord.

[Grizadams]

So how do we import these builds? Cause yet again mids says "unable to recognize data"

 

I am trying to get back into CoH as somebody who played since it originally came out, but everything seems to be running on the mids builds now and not a single one ever works. Very frustrating

 

EDIT: I figured out my mids was actually a few pages behind. Did an update and everything works great! I hope to explore some of your builds and get back into saving the city!! 😄

 

Edited July 9 by Grizadams

[icesphere]

do you have the latest update of mids? Typically it is easier to uninstall/reinstall as the update button is wonky.

[GM Crumpet]

I've pinned this post as it's terribly useful

[Zect]

Many large build compilations are full of garbage. Relying on one can be hit and miss. If you're lucky, you might merely end up building something that's horribly-optimized or severely outdated. If you're not, you may build something that falls far short of what's advertised, while getting hit by someone's misinformed opinion of what a toon can, should, or must do.

 

Therefore, I am extremely pleased to look in here and discover builds that, in general:

• Leverage key strengths/synergies of the AT/powersets
• Prioritize high slot-efficiency
• Carefully consider the placement of key procs and uniques
• Choose and meet appropriate stat breakpoints (minimize wasted stats)
• Avoid misleading/deceptive build presentation (no toggling on destinies, FF procs etc.)

I've only looked at a few, because there are so many, but what I've seen is very promising.

 

Some things are a matter of opinion, some efficiencies can be found, but as a whole, it's delightful to see builds that are crafted with thought and care and with close attention to how they will function in live combat conditions, not merely to chase numbers in mids. The only thing that is really missing is a detailed breakdown of the threat environment and build goals each one is designed for.

Edited November 25 by Zect

[icesphere]

I appreciate the feedback. Most of my builds I try to aim for high performance, but not necessarily meta or needing incarnate crutching to be effective. I also try to swing some things to exempt and level well like taking a travel power at or prior to level 14, getting most used power pools by level 37 so I can save the last power selections a LotG mules or patron/epic attacks. I try to focus the builds strengths and lean into them.

 

Part of the preference is my builds aiming for resists/HP as a means of survival and this is a number of reasons. 1) In an MMO setting people tend to team more often than not, and with the amount of support leaning heavily on +defense like particular buff powers(force field, cold domination, time, ect) as well as leadership power pools that can be taken on any AT. 2) Purple inspirations offer higher percentage values with an easier to attain softcap than what an orange inspiration has to offer and goal to reach. So if people are concerned on solo'ing, then that isnt an issue either. I typically dont add in goals like what difficulty it can handle or what sort of groups can they or can not handle, as that can be skewed from player experience, whether or not they factor in outside sources such as inspirations, amplifiers, SG buffs, ect. I have 139 current builds that I level up myself (not farms) so i have a lot of experience with what tends to work easier vs a late bloomer and people can feel free to ask in discord or here.