Deacon_NA

This would be a very solid, very funny show without H. Jon. With him, it's transcendent. At first I was a skeptic because I've always thought of him as the voice of the "schlubby everyman" rather than bad-azz superspy, but now I'm a believer.

There is always, always an open spot for an insp drop for me. Well, one noticable exception - when all the drops have been T3s, those I hoard. Compulsively. I've never thought about it until just this minute, but I must have on the order of 1000 T3 insps in various solo bases across servers/factions. It's the purples and oranges I value most. In actuality, it turns out I end up raiding my base and giving those purple/oranges to tanks on pug STFs that just can't quite deal with LR.

Also, when doing vill patron arcs, I find I consume the t3s when fighting the patron and later, when fighting LR, depending on how capable the toon is.

I too want to join the club that is infuriated when trying to pass on insps, especially to a corpse, and getting the "inventory full message".

One thing I'd like clarification on - the OP mentions trouble soloing, but are you looking for a solo build? Or a team build that can solo?

I have an FF/Energy I've long since mothballed, but this might reenergize my interest.

Here's a few random things...

In Fortitude, I'd look to use another membrane or perhaps a Def/Rch (LOTG if you want the regen bonus) over one of the Recharge IOs.

12 points of -kb is a lot for a Defender. I'm content with 4, personally, but I'm fine with rarely getting kbd. If you want to never be kbd, then you'd want more.

The EndMod/Acc in Rec Aura is odd. There's nothing to hit with it. If you use the same slotting as in Adrenaline Boost (2 basic Recharge + 1 EndMod/Rch) you'd get basically the same recharge and free up a slot.

I like putting stealth IOs into Sprint, rather than SS, freeing up another slot.

I prefer to slot Shocking Bolt as a hold. Using the 2 free slots from above you should be able to 4-slot it with Basilisk Gaze for another 7.5%. To be honest though, recharge is already so high, more recharge will provide a trivial return. Still, the accuracy is quite low for this and final to-hit against a +3 is 85%.

One final consideration - I personally would go for Leadership over Fighting. Slotted Maneuvers will get you 5% Defense. Your slotting for Weave gives you 7%. This is a low defense build, so that 2% isn't going to be a big difference maker for you. Then I'd go with Tactics over Tough and keep the 5% recharge bonus with Adjusted Targeting.

What the heck, I went ahead and made the revisions. I put the Heca set in Brawl and changed the snipe, only because you mentioned you already, not that I think it's preferable.

How will hunts be done for both of the WSTs? These events despawn mobs and both Manticore and Renault have hunts in zones.

This doesn't seem to be well thought through...

Edit to add - ok it looks like these events aren't constant. As I typed my message, banner events in all zones were followed by zombie events in all zones. So it looked like this was going to be a constant stream of these events at the time. That doesn't appear to be the case now.

Can Elec/Elec Brute farm? Heck yeah. I'm not much for farming, but when I do, I log onto my Elec/Elece Brute and it's off to RWZ (if looking for recipe drops ) or my Energy damage farm in AE (when I want tickets).

I'm not going to endorse it as "the best farmer". I will say you can crank up the slider on both scales and engage in either of those activities with practical impunity. Beef up some melee (or s/l) defense and even the Rikti swords won't be so bad.

The bosses you may struggle with today will be less of an issue after Power Sink. Yeah they'll get in an alpha (and beta) shot but it doesn't take long to drain them.

Edit to add - aoe stun sorta sucks. For farming purposes, if you need a stun with high kb "you're doing something wrong". I'd be respeccing out of that as soon as practically possible.

Put me in the category of "just don't care". New toons are created purely based on powersets for me now. One thing though, I hate the old-school hero contacts. Every now and then I do a hero arc, just to see if things are better for Janet Kellum and her ilk, either through my own added experience or gameplay additions (oro portals for example) Those arcs just always suck.

I do enjoy the Rogues Isles much more though. To this day, even on uber slotted lvl 50+1 toons, I still take careful consideration of where I'm going in Grandville, lest I end up in a swarm of Banes.

Shatter does not crit (based on my experiences using it).

I haven't tried using it from the Stealth pool, but since it doesn't crit from MP, I'd highly doubt it would.

Dook suxxxxx.

What is it you're going for? BotZ -kb ios drop, but I can't think of any other high value recipes at 10.

There's far more to consider than debuff values for Sonic Attack (which is irrelevant anyway because the question is about DP) when considering Def vs Corr.

For one thing, a Traps Defender can far more easily build up high levels of defense.

Here are the base for values for FFG, Maneuvers, CJ and Weave:

Corr: 10 + 2.625 + 2.125 + 4.25 = 19
Def: 13.3 + 3.5 + 2.5+ 5 = 24.3

Let's enhance everything but CJ to ED cap and you get 28.3 for the Corr and 36.3 for the Def. This is before doing any set bonuses. This allows the defender to concentrate on recharge bonuses and procs, not so much on defense. Please note, the above is not the only path to soft-capping. My Traps/DP does not have Weave and is soft-capped, for example.

I haven't even gotten to the higher debuff values for the Defender.

Acid Mortar -res debuff: 20% for Corr, 26.6% for Def.
Seeker Drones -dmg debuff: 20% for Corr, 26.6 for Def.

I could go on.

For full disclosure, I will admit one of my "A-list go-to" characters is a Traps/DP Def, one I am thrilled with for team support or solo play. I can't imagine a scenario where a DP/Trap Corr would be better. Don't get me wrong, the Corr will be very very good, just not better, for this particular combo.

With the notable except of Doms, I don't know that the hero epics are across the board better than the patron powers.

I've felt your pain, of transitioning a thugs/poison from a comfy solo world to team play with a secondary that offers little means to consistently increase your safety versus a large number of mobs.

From your first paragraph, I'd say your main problem is putting your pets on attack. At this point you're just a mezzable little pile of 800 hp (I can't view the build in Mids at the moment) that's 1-2 shots away from death, with only a hold to truly protect yourself. With Neurotoxic Breath, Bile Spray and Provoke you should be able to get someone's attention. Once the Thugs get engaged they tend to stay in for the rest of the fight, since they're so aoe heavy.

Another option is to use Attack my target + Defensive. This will get them attacking and automatically put them back in Defensive when the target is defeated. Again, hopefully their aoes will get someone's attention.

Bottom line - your survivability will increase dramatically by staying BG mode on teams.

I haven't built my thugs/ poison yet and to be honest, it may never happen, given how far down the list he is, of 50s to pay attention to for shards and IOs. So I don't have any practical build advice. I'm pretty sure I'd be focusing on def, probably ranged and aoe.

What's immature about "why the face?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDeqc8sTLpc

This whole process is just too much of a chore and, like someone said previously on this thread, I'm just too lazy. My script goes like this:

1) Enter mission solo, run to Trapdoor
2) Log in 2nd account to bring in either Trapper, Mind Dom or whatever my main control and/or debuff toon is for that server. Defeating him is easy with solid debuffs and trivial when he's perma-held.
3) Do the talk-tos
4) Drop the Honoree mission. This is where 2 toons are helpful, since you need to zone to Oro twice in a short period.
5) Repeat steps 1 & 2 for minotaur. No he's not nearly as challenging as Trapdoor, but just for speed.
6) Shard time!

Anyway, when someone says "I'm having trouble" and the response is "Huh? It was easy for me", I can't imagine that's being very helpful for whoever is seeking help. My #1 advice is to get a teammate. Any should do, but if you can add any of the buff/debuff classes or control ATs, all the better. A request in either a private channel (like one your SG may have) or a public one for your server will quite likely get you some help. Personally speaking, unless I'm on a tf, I usually give a few minutes to give a hand with one my Trapdoor killers.

A lot of emphasis has been made on build, but I haven't seen any mention of tactics. I have a D4 (meaning Defender) that I don't solo with much but I have done so. Soloing is not all that fast, but quite safe. A Corr should have similar safety but faster kill speed.

Dark Miasma offers some interesting options for solo play, such as corner pulling with Darkest Night. I'll stick with more basic play for now...

1) With Shadow Fall on, target the mob furthest from you in a spawn. Position yourself in a way that all the mobs in the spawn fit within a 45 degree angle from you. Use Fearsome Stare. This will not only put the foes in a fear state, but also debuff their to-hit by 15% (enhanceable and adjusted by level and rank).

2) While foes are cowering in the fear state, you have practical immunity to drop some addition non-damaging debuffs. Put Darkest Night on the foe most likely to survive the longest. Now to-hit is debuffed another 15% (again, adjusted by enhancements, level and rank) and damage is debuffed by 30% (or quite a bit more depending on Fluffy using his Darkest Night). By this time Dark Servant should be fully engaged adding even more debuffs.

3) Drop your Tar Patch. Now they're barely able to move and their resistance is lowered by 30%. You're ready to commence the killing.

To summarize where you are at this point, if you've enhanced -tohit in FS and DS, even level cons will have -tohit debuffed to a point where you're effectively soft-capped. If they do manage to hit you, it's for 30% (at least) less damage, which is further diluted by your epic armor and Shadow Fall (depending on damage type). If you've been hit, Twilight Grasp can easily restore your HP.

4) Kill em. Spam Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall and throw in a Dark Blast and/or Gloom while aoes recharge. These attacks continue to lower to-hit.

The only monkey wrench I can really think of is a fear resistant mob that can mez you (dropping DN). That's what Petrifying Gaze (and/or epic hold) is for. Or the previously mentioned stuns.

* Please note the above is not a recipe for the "best" way to play a Dark/Dark Corr. It's a recipe that will work for 99% of pve solo encounters that I believe will work for someone otherwise struggling, without requiring some high global recharge for, say, relying on Howling Twilight. No offense to OP if the above sounded patronizing, but I can't make assumptions about your familiarity with the powers at this point.

That build above doesn't include Fearsome Stare which is reason enough to ignore it. Posis in Howling Twilight, Enfeebled Op in Dark Servant, this is a perfect example of gimping what a powerset is good at in the pursuit of bonuses.

Whatever the build ends up being for the OP, it needs to include a well slotted Fearsome Stare. That itself is worth more than gimping a build just for perma-hasten.

I hate to poo-poo achievements people are proud of, but we've had a 3-member ITF contest on Infinity not too long ago

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=253912

So 3-member ITFs, though impressive, aren't particularly special. Sort of like a 20-25 minute ITF. Good, just not noteworthy.

I'm not a PVPer, but I have been ganked via TPFoe while doing stuff in zones, so I think zone pvpers use it.

Pre-IOs, I found it useful on a MA/SR scrapper when I was leveling. Because it's all single target damage, and with SR, pre-IOs, I needed to minimize the amount of incoming damage as much as I could. So even if that meant TPing a minion and aggroing a lieut, I could pretty much deal with the minion and only have the lieut to deal with. I do think that was an exceptional case of who can use TP Foe.

I haven't taken it since and if it were removed, I wouldn't miss it a bit.