EricHough

If I go with detonation on a build, its purely for the enhancement values it provides vs the enhancement values that positrons blast provides. One important thing to keep in mind is that some IO sets frequently short you in one type of enhancement and go way over what you need in another when you are are 5 or 6 slotting them for bonuses. For example, a set of 5 L50 positrons blast will give you far to much damage enhancement (127%, which gets reduced to 99% with ED) and leave you way short on recharge, with only 26% recharge. In exchange you get 6.25% global recharge, 9% accuracy and a little rec boost. If you can spare a 6th slot for a L50 common recharge IO, or you only need about 25% recharge slotted in the power, then you are good. If you need more recharge or cannot afford a 6th slot, then you might want to do what I did in venom grenade in my sample build - 4 L50 detonation (A/D, D/E, D/R and A/D/E) plus a L50 recharge IO for 47% acc, 95% dam, 47% end and 68% recharge.

Thats for the set bonuses - boxing is one of my favorite ways to pick up positional def. Razzle Dazzle gives you 2.5% melee def for 5 pieces and if you can fit a 6th in you get 2.5% AoE def. Alternatively, you can slot a stupify in boxing - 6 pieces gets you 3.13% ranged def and 6.25% recharge. Its one of the key ways I get to the softcap - its also CHEAP, as stun sets are fairly easy to get on the market. In my sample build I put an extra slot in CJ to get a boost to all positions but you could move it to boxing, finish off the razzle dazzle set and pick up 2.5% to AoE in place of 0.6% to all positions.

Adeon covered this pretty well - very few IO sets short you on accuracy enhancement and a lot of them have extra global accuracy - between that and TT:leadership, you should be at the to hit cap vs most things in the game. For the few things that might cause you problems (nemesis with stacked vengence, etc) you would be FAR better off taking aim instead of CT: Offensive - a 50% to hit buff, even for 10s at a time, is far better than a 10% accuracy boost.

Adding a slot to hasten will shorten its recharge, which means it will be up more and could help with the long timer powers - but thats fairly complicated to figure out since mids can either tell you what the recharge is with or without the full value of hasten but it can't pro-rate that value for uptime. However, putting another L50 IO in hasten is not likely to buy you much - due to ED you are only going to get another 16% enhancment from that third IO, which cuts the recharge of hasten by at most 6 seconds.

With a 10s duration, cut even shorter because the animation eats into it, AIM is not actually giving you much of a DPS boost. Using my sample build as an example you would get at best a 33% uptime on aim as it would have a 30s recharge when hasten was up. That means that the 50% damage boost is at best going to be worth 16% over time and that doesn't take into account time taken out of your attack sequence to fire off aim. In its place I took TT:Assault, which gives you and everyone on your team a constant 15% damage buff that takes NO time out of combat. The real benefit to aim is the 50% to hit buff - against those few opponents that do have significant def buffs or to hit debuffs, its a good way to overcome them. If you don't take TT: Leadership, I would definitely recommand aim. In most cases though, TT: Leadership + TT: Assault is going to be superior as it buffs you, your pets and your team.

Both crab single target attacks are inferior to the equivalent attack in the soldier tree as they both have a lot longer activation, longfang is simply the worst offender at 2s to bursts 1s. The primary 'value' to the huntsman build, whether you are a crab or a bane, is the fast activating attacks in the soldier tree. If you want to do a huntsman crab, I would suggest picking up most of your attacks form the soldier tree to cut down on redraw and capitalize on the faster attacks.

I do have a huntsman build on my crab, as I wanted to see if that felt superior to my bane hunstsman and my conclusion is that its hard to tell. I basically gave up cloaking device and surveilance for fortification and serum. I also dropped a pool attack so I could take suppression, which was pretty much the only power I took from the crab primary tree. The result is a huntsman that provides about the same amount of group buffs, a little less debuffs (the 20% in surviellance and 15% in arctic breath, which I dropped for suppression) but is a lot tougher when enemies do close. Here is my crab hunstman build:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Midnight Carnage: Level 50 Natural Arachnos Soldier
Primary Power Set: Crab Spider Soldier
Secondary Power Set: Crab Spider Training
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Leviathan Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Single Shot -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(3), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5)
Level 1: Crab Spider Armor Upgrade -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), S'fstPrt-ResKB(7)
Level 2: Burst -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(9), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(11), Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11)
Level 4: Combat Training: Defensive -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 6: Wide Area Web Grenade -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(13), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(13), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(15), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(15), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(17)
Level 8: Heavy Burst -- Det'tn-Acc/Dmg(A), Det'tn-Dmg/EndRdx(17), Det'tn-Dmg/Rng(19), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), RechRdx-I(21), Achilles-ResDeb%(21)
Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(23), LkGmblr-Rchg+(23)
Level 12: Venom Grenade -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(25), Posi-Dmg/Rng(27), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(27), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 14: Suppression -- Det'tn-Acc/Dmg(A), Det'tn-Dmg/EndRdx(29), Det'tn-Dmg/Rng(31), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), AnWeak-Acc/Rchg/EndRdx(31)
Level 16: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Tough -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(33), ResDam-I(33)
Level 20: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(33), LkGmblr-Rchg+(34)
Level 22: Mental Training -- Run-I(A)
Level 24: Fortification -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(34), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(34), RctvArm-ResDam(36)
Level 26: Combat Jumping -- Krma-ResKB(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+(36)
Level 28: Serum -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(36), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Dct'dW-Heal(37), Dct'dW-Rchg(37)
Level 30: Tactical Training: Leadership -- GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(A), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-ToHit(39), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(40), GSFC-Build%(40)
Level 32: Super Jump -- Winter-ResSlow(A)
Level 35: Summon Spiderlings -- ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(A), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx(40), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(42), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 38: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), S'dpty-Def(43), LkGmblr-Def(43)
Level 41: School of Sharks -- Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(A), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(43), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(45), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(45), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(46)
Level 44: Bile Spray -- Det'tn-Acc/Dmg(A), Det'tn-Dmg/EndRdx(46), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(46), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), RechRdx-I(48)
Level 47: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(48), Heal-I(50)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(50), P'Shift-End%(50)
Level 1: Conditioning
Level 4: Ninja Run
------------



As you can see I didn't go totally petless - spiderlings are just to nice and are a cheap place to get a 6.25% global recharge bonus for only 4 slots.

Maybe its secretly a member of the resistance and it stayed on primal earth to get away from Cole?

On a controller I would go with rad or storm. Rad lets you combine radiation infection with crushing field for ghetto control and storm lets you do the same with freezing rain, since CF doesn't prevent knockdown. Both secondaries will carry you until you can get to wormhole and singularity. After that storm adds a ton of extra damage in lightning storm/tornado and rad is just a great secondary overall.

On a dominator I would go with energy or earth assault. Both of those will give you KD/KB in your attacks to combine with lift for extra soft control and good single target damage until you get to wormhole. Energy will be better if you want to stay at range, earth for a melee focus.

In both cases the goal is to fill in for the lack of hard control in the primary at early levels, either with debuffs or extra soft control.

Try using the target_custom_next command - it accepts a number of parameters, including one that targets only your pets. Bind it to a key of your choice - one possible bind would look something like:

/bind t "target_custom_next mypet"

This would allow you to target your nearest pet, then cycle through them by hitting T. You can also include specific names after the my pet parameters if you want to target specific pets.

For more info on the target_custom_next command, check out http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Target_custom_next_%Slash_Command%

Well, the brute is going to have taunt in all thier attacks, where the scrapper is just going to have it in invincibility. Brutes also get an AoE taunt in the place of confront in the primary and any brute that wants to act like a tank should take taunt, mine all do. Invulnerability, like shield defense, is one of the few secondaries that lets a scrapper hold aggro - but they are still not going to out taunt a brute (or tank) build for aggro management.

Overall, the brute does have better tools for holding aggro than the scrapper and slightly better tools for survivability - this is traded off against the scrappers doing better damage out the gate. Dark Melee is one of the corner cases where scrappers tend to do better top damage as well but I suspect that unless you really care about pylon times its not actually going to be really noticable.

In the end, as usual, its going to boil down to playstyle preference. Some folks don't like to wait for fury to build up, be constantly chasing it and are focused on pure damage, other folks want to be more capable tanks but like doing damage that at least rivals a scrappers. In my case, my dm/inv is a brute - but that's mostly because she is the evil twin to my blueside shield/ss tank and so I needed to go with a brute, so rp choice on my part.

I will throw this thought out - for those who think that brutes/tanks don't have enough of an edge in survivability over scrappers to justify the damage differences you really need to try comparable builds. I thought the same thing until I levelled up a shield/ss tank to 50 and was able to compare her survivability with my 2 */shield scrappers - the difference is astounding. Its all in the extra hit points - it may not look like a lot on paper but the extra hit points tanks get make a HUGE difference in survivability. Brutes don't get as much extra but since almost all HP boosts work of the base HP, any increase in the base makes a big difference.

You can go back to old posts and argue about semantics all you want but the fact is that if Castle had meant PSW to do more damage than it does now, it is likely he would have changed it sometime before he left -he had plenty of time to do that between the overall dom revamp and when he left CoX.

PSW is just fine as it is - if you compare it to all the other PBAoE attacks that dom's get you can see that its still way at the top, although you DO need to look at them all together:

The only PBAoE's that are ahead of PSW on damage are combustion and thornburst. Both of them do a lot of thier damage in a long DoT and have 150% the cast time of PSW, plus combustions secondary effect IS extra damage, so it should do more. If you think PSW is bad, check out Tremor - worst damage overall, longest cast time plus its all smashing damage, so more resisted than everything but thorn burst. Once you factor in cast time, damage type (psychic damage, which is rarely resisted) and the double secondary effects (50% recharge debuff + chance to stun) and I would argue that PSW is still the best PBAoE that dom's get.

The fact that PSW is a tier 9 power is meaningless - the dev's have stated (and shown) many times that the tier of a power has nothing do to with how 'powerfull' it is - it was just a coincidence that a lot of the original power sets had nukes and god powers as tier9's. The only thing that matters is the overall effectiveness of ALL the powers in the set.

I don't know if I would say RoA is the best AoE, but your numbers above are incorrect - you are only looking at 1 tick of damage out of 3 total in RoA - total damage on a defender is going to be at 146.31.

The alpha slot does not affect domination. It only affects powers that can actually slot a recharge enhancement - so it could help you get hasten back faster, which WILL help in getting perma-dom but you are still likely to need more global recharge than the bare minimum. Add in the fact that you lose the alpha slot bonus if you SK below L45 and I would not want to rely on it for perma-dom even if it helped. You are probably better off getting enough global recharge from set bonuses to be safe and going with a musculature alpha for the damage boost.

As for slotting def - on an electric, ice or fire dominator it is a reasonable goal, since all 3 sets encourage you to move into melee and you are right - even 1 uncontrolled boss can ruin your day at melee range. I would suggest aiming for about 32.5% smashing/lethal def (or melee def - your choice) as a compromise - that puts you within 1 small purple inspiration of the softcap and in my experience once you hit 30% def you notice a huge difference in incoming damage, even without controls to slow down most of it.

Thats pretty much why I posted it. A lot of the choices really are personal preference, so its certainly easy to change. I like having full travel powers, so I took super jump but you could easily skip it and rely on ninja run. I find I use recall friend a lot in groups, especially on a stealther, but its easily replaced. You could also swap call reinforcements for web cocoon if you prefer the hold - you wouldn't even have to sacrfice global recharge if you do that, as you can put a gaze of the basilisk set in the hold in place of the expedient reinforcement set. Mind you, I don't completely agree with Magentrix about the pets - the disruptor bots are some of the most durable and useful pets that soldiers get. Unlike the spiderlings in the crab tree they stay at range, so AoE attacks don't wipe them out and they have some nice controls to add. But a single target hold with a 50% recharge debuff is also a nice power and it will be up more reliably than the pets.

I will throw out a thought about placate - since you don't have full crits on a bane it isn't a good damage enhancing power - due to the cast time you will end up cutting into your DPS even with the crits - basically, in order for placate to increase your DPS you need get full crits AND use it to crit on an attack that has a longer cast time than placate - otherwise you are better off just using the faster casting attack. Even on a stalker with full crits its only worth it on attacks like midnight grasp, soaring dragon or disembowel. It is a nice control/aggro shedding power though, so its still worth taking.

Soldiers are my favorite AT in the game - you have soo many ways to build each branch of the tree and so much flexibility. The only drawback is the crab lags - I am not fond of them so I ended up leveling 2 soldiers, one as my huntsman/mace bane without crab legs, a second as a crab. Even my crab has 2 different builds - an AE heavy huntsman like build and a melee/ranged/pet tank build.

One key thing I realized is that it is WELL worth taking tough/weave on soldiers - they get the same values on these powers that tanks do, so you get a lot out of them. Thats why I did not have to slot as many touch of death and mako's bite sets as you did - weave gave me 7.6% def to all positions. A bunch of my recharge is in LoTG + recharge IO's but the nice thing about those these days is that you can pick them up with alignment merits fairly easily - 4 days per LoTG if you can run 5 tip missions a day (plus an alignment mission on day 2/4).

Because the trials take 30-40 minutes to run, 60 in the worst case, where raiding in pretty much every other MMORPG is a multi hour event? Because the minumum number of players to do a trial is pretty small (12 and 16) even if it is larger than any TF. As long as you are willing to group at all, it is fairly easy right now to open up at least 2 or so of the new incarnate slots and get everything you need to slot a common power in them. Getting up to an uncommon is not much harder.

Yes - it is EXTREMELY difficult to open/slot your incarnate slots SOLO (and I agree there should be better solo options than we currently have). However, solo is NOT the same as casual. I will also agree that crafting rare and v. rare components for your incarnate slots is a lot harder to do casually but I think anyone who thinks the top tiers of something like this should be EASY for a casual player has extremely unreasonable expectation - sort of along the lines of the "casual purpled out warshade".

I only play on one server (protector) but its considered one of the low pop servers and I have no problem logging in and getting in a league just by hanging out in RWZ for a little while or announcing in one of the main global channels.

"Casual" means a lot of different things, but at a minimum I would expect a casual player to be able to get in 2-3 hours of play a week - if you can't get at least that much in, you aren't even casual as far as I am concerned, you are barely even playing. If you can get 2-3 hours a week for at least an hour stretch each time, you should be able to get in 3-4 trials in that time period, more if you get in a group that is repeating them. This is less of a requirement than most task forces.

I actually don't mind the citadel that much: the repetitive kill all maps are generally the smaller council cave maps and at L30 with up to 35 powers council are easy to clear in large numbers. There are only 2 things that drive me crazy about it:

1) EVERY single IP mission is in the south end of the zone
2) Far to many missions are in dark astoria

Mind you, I think that all TF's should have DA missions removed completely, its the most difficult zone to get into/out of and almost no TF missions have any story based reason to be in DA. I also think the entire south end of IP should be removed - everything from the terra volta entrance on south is basically useless (plus, moving the zone wall up to the TV entrance would remove the stress that terra volta puts on the space/time continuum).

Other than those two issues, I actually prefer Citadel to, say, Sister Psyche. Her TF is a pain because it has nearly as many kill alls and at L25 freakshow are a real pain in the posterior - they hit really hard for that level and take a lot longer to kill due to dull pain and rezzes. Sure, its worth good xp and on a well balanced, steam rolling team isn't that bad - but the same team will do citadel in a lot less time.

And yes, GG, you are correct - we have wandered way off topic in this thread :-)

Would love to give it a try - post a time when you are planning on trying it, will do my best to show up.