Cognito

Ice is marginally better at aggro than Invun

(But both are good)

Invun will afford you superb protection vs smash / lethal. Ice is a bit more rounded, but probably slightly less tough than invun... partially because...

Ice and Invun share the property of becoming stronger the more mobs you face (Invincibility and Energy absorbtion respectively) although Invincibility gives more of a defence bonus.

Level 9 Power is considerably more useful in the Invun set, IMHO

Ice is slightly more offensive (has a AoE damage power, whereas Invun has scaling to hit bonus).

Ice stacks well with end draining (electric users or kinetics), or with debuffers (dark or rad).

So...

Not much in it. Both are solid, aggro grabbing tanks.

Ice slightly more offensive, slightly less defensive, slightly better aggro grabbing.

My advice is choose with concept.

However, if you know you will often team with a rad / dark user, go Ice

Lvl 37 Bots / TA here...

Oil Slick isn't over powered in anyway whatsoever... no sirree! *walks away whistling tunelessly*

Seriously, you will never be a higher damage MM than with a TA... not possible... Acid Arrow -res, Disruption Arros -res... tops Dark anyday...

And of course Oil Slick Arrow

*Hugs Oil Slick Arrow...mmmmm*

When this is fired off and alight, along with a disruption arrow, combined with AoE attacks the rate of killing is absolutely sick...

Dark may be safer, but if you are after speed of killing, TA is unbeatable...

Sure!

Post me and I'll check it out...

Its just that taunt only effects 5 IIRC...

Ill probably go for 2xSO in CE and Taunt (both useful anyway) and leave hibernate as a strictly oh hell button... IIRC the health recharge is sufficiently quick to recharge in 10 seconds or so... I should hope that most teams can take that long, especially if I fire of taunt just before to "lock down" the serious dangers for a couple of seconds beforehand.

Mind you, any comments from experienced Ice tanks welcome *eyes Spad meaningfully*

Ah yes.. the mighty permafrost..... hmmmm....

Interesting Idea about slotting Hibernate for heals... didnt do that with my first tank and it seemed to heal fairly fast, but of course faster would be better...

The question is, then, more efficient to slot up with 3xSO taunts in chillinge embrace/taunt vs 3sSO heals in hibernate?

As my (second) ice tank approaches 32 I would greatly appreciate some advice re: Hibernate...

Basically I have a hardcore ice/ice tank built for aggro and survivability (tough/weave, med pool etc)

I would like Hibernate in there for the truly terrible opponents (/glances at Infernal and shudders)...

My question is... is it possible to maintain some limited aggro once Hibernate is activated if you have heavily slotted Taunt enhancers on Chilling embrace and Taunt (planning at least two on each)?

Rain of Fire IS cool - it just needs love and care when using it. Fire Blasters spamming Rain of Fire is one of the classic team *groan*'s.

For instance, when FC gets repel and can herd the enemy into a corner from which there is no escape - it would be lethal. Or if we have a controller who can immobilise the lot of them - or slow the lot of them, etc, etc,.

As far as Teleport is concerned - its a RP group, get what suits you for RP. However, you may wish to delay the powers until the 20's?

Also you may consider getting something like Hover, Recall Friend and Teleport (skipping fly)?

Or if you really want: Get Hover, Fly, Recall Friend, Teleport Foe and Team Teleport?

Up to you really.

You should probablly be aiming to get stamina at level 20 or soon after.

Personally, Id skip the teleport powers and rain of fire to get swift / health / stamina.

Bare in mind Rain of Fire is a tasty AoE power, but causes all the enemies in it to scatter and run off, and then to get angry and attack you. To use it effectively you need some way of containing them - like an Ice tank, Controller, or Storm defender. Otherwise its best saved as a "Finish them off" power.

As far as I can see it boils down to maths:

Solo a lot : Regen (flat rate of damage mitigation)

Team a lot: AV (%age of incoming damage mitigation - more enemies, more effective).

Always go with concept first tho1

Agree. It is entirely possible to play without Stamina (especially for /regens or /masterminds). However it does take a fair bit of skill in both play and slotting / building the character.

My advice (only advice) is that for your first character, and before you really get to grips with game mechanics and play, getting stamina is a very good idea.

I wouldn't worry too much about making a toon super streamlined / efficient. Just make it workable, Derek.

Some handy hints in all of this are: Get stamina, Get Temporary Invunrability, Get UNyeilding, Get invincibility. These are pretty key powers. As long as you have these, you should be "workable".

May be worth considering the team you are playing with. You will, for instance, often be teaming with Force Commander and therefore often be speed boosted. This means that extra recharge slots or the hasten power may be less attractive.

I heard somewhere that the Dev's had taken down Hami with just 24 heroes.

Are we missing something?

Combustion is very good damage, its just its DoT and dosent look as groovy as fire sword circle. I have it slotted up on my blaster and its very effective.

Blazing Aura will up your damage considerably. Its also very good damage and since its a toggle, will up your dps considerably because you dont need animation.

Both, in my opinion are very good damaging powers.

However, you have to mitigate this against a) aggro and b) end cost.

Seriously, against the right crowd (i.e. one low on AoE attacks), these powers are a killer if you sit side by side with a good tank who keeps the attacks of you.

In a shoddy team, you will be eating dirt. In a good, tight team (with a tank) you will start ripping the enemy up.

Like all powers, theres a good side, and a bad side.

Except Jump Kick... hellfire, when are they gonna sort that one out?

Do Cloaking Device and Stealth stack? I thought they didnt..

Im pretty sure that empathy will never surface for villians ever... I think I recall some / all of the dev's pretty much saying as much.

And good too... One of the best things about CoV is it has eroded the "ZOMG w3 n33d 4 h34l0r!" philosophy.

New sets? Probably none at all for masterminds. Don't know who, if any, ATs will get them. Probably nobody, as there a lot of other major developments. To be honest, tanker primaries would be my first plea to the devs.

Anyways...

In the fullness of time, I'd guess the next mastermind set would be Circus [Carnie/Acrobats/Whatever]. The secondary is a bit trickier.

Spelling and Grammar is for girls.

/em grunts and drags knuckles whilst making crude gesticulations

Correctomundo.

Spelling is for girls.

((Unfortunately I dont think we have a chance vs. The Gang - ever))

((They all have stacked buffs from leadership, forcefields, etc.))

((We are at an immense disadvantage in having a lot of single target scrappers, and very few controllers / defenders who can lay on stacked buffs))

((I'm afraid the cold hard maths will defeat us. We dont have anywhere as near many AoE effects as them and in teams AoE rules))

((Please feel free to disagree, its just I cant see a way around this without adding 3 forcefield defenders with all three leadership pools to the team for instance ))

Disagree.

The term "Base", would by my understanding of the english language, imply before any further modifications (i.e. buffs) have been implied.

Of course, the particular language of the game may not be in accordance with the English language.

Not that I forsee any capitulation, mind. Different viewpoints.

Boost ? Buff ? Interchangable surely?

It effects base damage iirc (i.e. adds to base damage of attack before other bonuses).

Not relevant to the essence of my point tho.

Leadership and Triage Beacon may look pants, dosent mean they are. They produce no SFX and no red or green numbers. This makes them "invisible" and you can easily be fooled into thinking they are rubbish.

For instance, 8 Traps MM put down Triage Beacon and you suddenly play on God mode.

I was playing PvP vs 4 Masterminds a couple of days back who had stacked leadership buffs. It was ouch.

I have played a 6 man MM team, all with assault and tactics. They simply ripped through enemies without a pause. Accuracy was capped and Boost to base damage of +90%.

Just because powers are invisible doesntr mean they aren/t good. Its a pychological trick. When these effects stack they are sick.

Heh... sorry.

I played the RV event with a level 40/40 ice tank. 3 slotted CE with slows.

Now on this toon , who had ice slick too - I had endless fun seeing stalkers desperately backpedal at a snails pace whilst they got KB'd from air superiority, ice slick, and slowed from CE and my melee attacks.

It felt pretty effective vs stalkers tbh. The usual tactics of AS and run if miss (which they often did) or interupted (which they often did due to icicles 3xSO accuracy and +perc from glacial armour) were not so effective courtesy of CE.

I cant really comment on other builds. I'll just note that from experience stalkers came acropper a lot.

Nice. Not great, but Nice.

Basically, your role changes. Like most CoH ATs, you do better in teams and worse solo. To put it another way, Villians can crank up the difficulty when solo, but Heroes can steam through superhard missions in a good team.

Anyways...

BAsically, a tank is not a damage dealer. Sure you crank out a few attacks, and that helps, but thats not really something you are going toe excel at.

The best way of thinking about tanking is a zen like state where you ae there to allow all the other members of your team to do their job without inhibitions. This is highly effective. If your blasters / Defenders / Controllers whip out their AoE powers/debuffs/holds with no fear of getting attacked themselves, its beautiful.

Thats how I aproach it anyway. You know whats it like - if toons get attacked they panic, run around, and generally loose effectiveness - start worrying about dying and debt rather than the teams efficiency. Free them!. Basically, you are an efficiency expert.

By all means knock your attacks out - they help, but you arent a brute. On the flip side you take an extraordinary amount of punishment that Brutes never could. Play to your strengths.

I stand corrected then.

I just did some testing, it seemed very much like if I missed I got no fury. Sounds like i was mistaken, but if anyone else can confirm this on testing, that would clarify things further.