Auroxis

If you take Scorpion Shield, Maneuvers, and CJ, the Nerve Alpha could get you to the S/L softcap.

A select few people already have Rikti outfits from meet and greets and contests, I think. A Mind/Psy dom with that outfit could perform a Rikti pretty well. If they make NPC costumes purchasable from the NC store one day, that would be an option for you.

Also, there have been suggestions about giving weapon dependent animations to non-weapon sets, like firing energy blasts from an energy gun.

As for Rikti as a new archetype, I don't like it as I don't see the Rikti providing that many options for powers, and it would be extremely hard to make costumes available for the Rikti model.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=245074

Yes I copypasted because I'm lazy.

When an attack occurs, the highest value of defense you currently have that applies to that attack is taken into consideration. For example:

An enemy attacks you with a fire sword. A fire sword is a melee attack with fire and lethal damage components. Let's say you have these defenses:

10% fire defense
5% melee defense
15% lethal defense

Only the lethal defense will be taken into calculation, as it is the highest applicable defense.


With that out of the way, when people say softcapping defense they don't mean softcapping all forms of defense, as that is impossible. Depending on the character at hand, softcapping different sorts of defense is realistic. A shield defense character will want to softcap Melee/Ranged/Aoe defense. An invulnerability character will want to softcap Smashing/Lethal/Energy/Negative defense. A character with no base defense will want to settle for the most realistic softcap option, that being Smashing/Lethal defense.

Wait what? White Dwarf AV or am I missing a joke here?

Most -KB IO's are pretty cheap, and you should get at least one as soon as you can.

As for Taunt, I can tell you from my experience playing an Elec/Fire(a damage aura and lots of AoE damage) that your AoE radius won't catch everything, and some hard targets will often be lured by some better taunt auras(AAO from SD for example).

Getting defense isn't at all mandatory, but if you want to increase your tanker's survivability from IO's, it is the best way to go. Also, you definitely don't need to be at the softcap to make the bonuses useful, but the closer you get the bigger the impact on your survivability.

Edit: Weave and CJ's numbers may seem small, but they still add a lot to a Fire Armor tanker.

Can you cage a Nictus Essence in the ITF?

Taunt - I swear by Taunt. IMO it's too important for a Tanker to pass up. When a squishy has a mob on him, Taunt is the only thing you can do to reliably get the mob off. Also, in some high level TF's Taunt is almost necessary for keeping the AV's on you.

Defense - Getting high levels of defense is the best way to get survivability on a resistance based set like Fire Armor. Along with defense, you should also aim for recharge so your AoE's and self heal are up faster, also important is getting HP, but defense will get you more survivability in general.

Self Rez - I took it but I respecced out of it. It's a nice thing to have, but not at all necessary. Some people swear by the self rez, some people see it as redundant. IMO, you're either gonna die a lot or not die at all. If you die a lot, the self rez will likely not recharge fast enough to be of consistent help. If you're not gonna die at all then the self rez won't be used.

Burn - I haven't played a lot with the new Burn, but I know the main difference is that the fear component was removed and the damage is less DOT and more up-front. It's a great power and to me it's the main appeal of Fire Armor.

KB Resistance and Acrobatics - Going for the KB IO over Acrobatics saves you a power choice, and that's the most important thing IMO. Fire/Fire can have difficulties with endurance until you get a lot of recharge into Consume. Note I never played Fire/Fire so maybe someone else can provide better input on this.

The only place I would want more resists is in the ITF, really. And you can easily craft a +5% Lethal Resistance base empowerment buff that should last you the entire TF.

/Rad and /Dark.

If you're mostly solo, then /Dark. /Storm is also a good choice if you're strictly solo.

Don't forget about the Kinetic Dampener temp power, having that one ready for activation should really help.

Inflation. You can't deny its existence anymore, just looking at the dramatic price increase of almost every IO post I19. Salvage is seemingly not affected, but perhaps this is due to AE's booming popularity as of late.


Why did it happen?

I think the most important reason(there are likely a few) is that through the incarnate system, people have been selecting merit rewards from level 50 TF's far less often, and people are doing sub 50 TF's less often. This means that a major inf sink, the A-Merit conversion, is used much less. Due to the coming slots and higher boost tiers maintaining the demand for shards and components, this likely won't change.

What's my suggestion to fix it?

Make Incarnate Shards drop from sub 50 mobs as well. This will make lower level TF's more popular, thus making reward merits more common. If you unlocked your alpha, any non-AE mob that doesn't con grey/green will have a chance at dropping shards.

Are you dead set on Web Envelope? Because if not, I would take Gloom instead. That would give you a ranged attack chain in case you need it, and perhaps even a better melee attack chain due to Gloom's great DPA.

You should consider 4-slotting Stamina with Performance Shifters, since I hear Widows are pretty endurance intensive.