Heraclea

It is rather inefficient throwing tickets at random rolls for white common invention salvage, given that you may fill your inventory with junk before you get what you need, even if you sell all the unneeded stuff you got. You can also run out of tickets. I try to get most pieces of white salvage I need this way, since the auction house prices lately are out of control and not something I would want to reward. While I am happy to undercut the gougers, it would appear that not enough are doing it.

On the other hand, when you go to sell your unneeded common salvage, another problem becomes obvious. More than 65,000 inf. for a Spell Scroll? Prices like that shock the conscience, especially since no 1-25 user can acquire the kind of inf necessary to purchase them at the AH without abusive play or abusive market manipulations.

I think it's become a moral necessity to allow you to buy white salvage to order, the same way that you can buy yellow and orange. Random rolls for uncommon/rare salvage might also be a good idea. Allowing them to be purchased to order would allow them to be acquired through intended play in the MA, while putting downward pressure on the inflationary spiral in the AH. It would also discourage inf selling and abusive farming. Purchasing white salvage to order is probably overdue and would be for the good of the game generally.

My regen focused WP tanker build has approximately 600% base regen, with no foes in RttC. At six foes in range, she has more than 825%, Right now I do not have every regen bonus I plan on taking ultimately.

As an experiment, I am now levelling a WP tanker that will focus more on +defense bonuses than on +regen and +hp bonuses, to see if that performs better. This will take some time, because I will not pay inflated AH prices for the needed sets. But initial results are rather encouraging, and suggest that defense rather than regen is the way to go for IOs. I probably shouldn't be saying so out loud; the gougers may read this.

And let's face it, you just aren't going to get that much accuracy out of TO or DO enhancements, even if you actually buy enhancements at those levels. I never buy TOs; it seems better to save the inf and just go with what drops.

And acting alone, my 12-21 characters could not consistently afford DOs, IOs, or their initial SOs either. Most of mine get by now by being twinked by high levels, who make lowbie IOs in search of badges, and dump the high level SOs they get from regular play into a bin of IOs that can be sold whenever a character runs short of inf.

That isn't an option for everyone, and especially isn't going to be an option for a new player. The endurance mechanic hits hardest on low level characters played by people new to the game, and it seems to me that would be a marketing problem.

And, in the scenarios mentioned, you have to go after the Sorcerer first: nothing else is going to be defeated until the Sorcerer is.

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If any character is put into the position that they need to use rest in 30 seconds because of endurance, even with rest recharging that fast, I don't see using rest that often as fast-paced enjoyable play.

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For the pre-Stamina levels in question, rest is often needed after every spawn. If you try to take down a white lieutenant and minion standard solo combination, a tanker will surely need to rest if the lieutenant of that combo is a Tsoo Sorcerer. The same goes for a 3 minion spawn of CoT spectres. Leaving aside whether your hit points will carry you through such a fight, the end game of any such single spawn will consist of waiting for enough endurance to fire off an attack and hoping it hits; and you will need to rest when it is over.

Since a typical mission may contain dozens of similar combats, you will too often be faced with the situation where you will be waiting, not for Rest to recharge you, but for Rest to recharge.

Shortening the recharge time for Rest is probably a stopgap --- the entire role of endurance needs to be re-examined, and the Fitness pool ought to be truly optional IMO. But as far as I can see it does minimal damage to the actual combat mechanics, and will not change anything that is now working as intended.

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Then, the common person that doesn't know how to handle enhancments and power choices pre-stamina, the type of person that is used as "proof" that such an endurance problem exists, would still have endurance problems because they don't understand what they're doing.

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Yes, it is not obvious to new players that slotting your damage powers for damage is not optimal.

And unless they read the forums or guides or are instructed by others as to how to build, nothing tells these players in-game that Stamina is even required, that they will be expected to keep up with older players who have it while teamed, and that the rest of the game has been designed on them taking Stamina as soon as it is available. I don't know how obvious it can be that there's something generally wrong with Endurance as it works in this game.

Endurance recovery needs to be increased across the board, and endurance costs decreased across the board, so that the pace of play is as fast and exciting at level 18 as it is at 50. Until that can be done, decreasing the recharge of Rest to about thirty seconds strikes me as the most conservative solution that benefits all ATs equally without requiring changes in any other mechanic.

I have never had Unstoppable on a tanker, and having experienced it on brutes and scrappers don't much care for it.

Everything is helpful, although Resist Elements and Resist Energies don't have a high priority, and do not repay the investment of lots. Personally, I've taken all the passives, and two slotted them to get recovery bonuses.

Plan on taking Tough and Weave, but they aren't quite the priority for you as they are for Willpower. Plan also on getting as much endurance recovery as you are able. Do these things and you will be quite adequately tough and have fun.

Again, perhaps the simplest suggestion would be to reduce the recharge of Rest to thirty seconds. That would get rid of much of the pain in the lower levels.

I know that the predictable bunch will show up and say, "IF YOU DID THAT OMG REST WOULD BE OVERPOWERED!".

Yea, I augur that some will hypothesize that Rest with recharge of one half a minute would be too mighty to be countenanced. If thou thinkest so, in sooth the angels laugh behind thy back.

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Seriously, did you just seriously used the word anathema?. Honestly Sorciere who are you trying to impress with a word commonly used in the 1500's. Was loathe not enough? or was "hate" too simple?

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Methinks thou art a caitiff knave; aroint thee.

Man, it's been too long since I've been properly arointed.

I built my spines/willpower scrapper for light tanking specifically, and I have plenty of actual tankers for heavier jobs. That character would not be my first choice to tank Lord Recluse on a master's run, but has tanked Reichman and Romulus, and can hold aggro on regular spawns as well.

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In other words, frustrating the customer is costing CoH money.

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Bingo.

This game is great fun: faster pace and less frustration than any other MMO I've tried --- once you're able to fix your character's endurance problem. Using Rest, or worse, waiting for Rest to recharge, is frustrating and no fun. And the endurance mechanic means one thing alone: the game is showing its worst face to the new player. A player whose first taste of the game involves lots of waiting for Rest to recharge may be a player who chooses not to renew. If I didn't know it wasn't all like that from 1 to 50, I'd probably quit also.

One slightly less drastic solution to the issue than making Stamina inherent might simply be to cut the recharge of Rest to thirty seconds, to make sure it was available when needed.

I usually aim for Taunt sometime in the mid-20s. By SO levels your defenses ought to be ready for what Taunt will bring you.

Now, about tanking Synapse on a Willpower tanker? Done this many times without Heightened Senses. I won't have Mind over Body at those levels either. What I know I will have is Fast Healing, Rise to the Challenge, and (if level 16+) Health. That, and an occasional purple or orange, will be ''all that you need''. HS will not do enough for you to justify its further drain on your endurance surrounded by endurance draining mobs.

On the other hand ... the last time I tanked a Synapse was on a WP/SS tanker. And in Super Strength, I thought KO Blow was so appealing that I postponed Stamina to take it at level 20 instead. Big mistake. Stamina at 20 is the rule, even for Willpower tankers, and not even SS's best single target attack takes priority over that rule.

SOs at level 1 wouldn't bring Stamina any faster.

I think that three SO slotted Stamina ought to simply be inherent, added to base recovery. The 20+ game appears to be balanced around the assumption that everyone will have taken Stamina at 20 anyways. This creates a perverse incentive to powerlevel and blow off the beginning content of the game.

I would probably continue to build like I do, aiming for early Stamina even on Willpower and Regen characters that also get a Stamina substitute. I dislike the endurance mechanic that much, and find characters whose endurance is a significant limiting factor unplayable. This is the main reason why I've never gotten a Kheldian to high level. I don't think I have any on the live servers.

Endurance is simply untrue to the source material. You don't see any comic book hero exhausted and needing to rest after taking on the equivalent of three minions. This is the ordinary lot of a level 18 tanker. This is the game's single greatest mechanical problem, IMO.

Willpower gets Quick Recovery at level 20. Regeneration, at level 4.

If I want to just tinker with a scrapper primary, this is a powerful recommendation for Regeneration. Willpower is only for those primaries I know already I am going to want to keep.

No, of course, there is no "wrong" way to play, and that statement was a bit of hyperbole for the sake of emphasis.

The points I would impress on people are that:

1./ Before SO levels, the purely defensive toggles (Mind over Body and Heightened Senses) do so very little for you that you're better off leaving them off even if you take them most of the time. Inspirations are better and do not drain you or impair your ability to sustain combat.

2./ Yes, you can run the four Willpower toggles on QR alone. But in doing so, you negate the chief advantage of picking Willpower. Let's face it, the endurance mechanic is the least fun aspect of the game, and anything you can do to minimize its impact will make the game more enjoyable. Take the mez protection toggle (Indomitable Will) early, and take the regeneration toggle (Rise to the Challenge) early, but wait until Stamina is in place before picking up two more toggles, and your character will be more fun to play.

I typically try to get from 11-15 on Positron if it can be assembled, and having S/L protection that's slightly better than an inspiration is not all that much help versus Vahz, CoT, and Clockwork. I do the same 15-20 via Synapse, where once again a dab of S/L protection is not all that needful, even if you could keep it going despite all the endurance drains.

Stamina ASAP makes sense under this a leveling regimen: especially since at DO levels, MoB does less for you than a single purple inspiration. I slot up RttC early, but don't take MoB till 24 and HS at 30, usually. I will not enjoy a character if I have to Rest after every spawn; or worse, have to wait for Rest to recharge. By doing this, you get out of that rut very easily.

No, no , NO!. With /WP, you take Quick Recovery at 20 and Stamina at 22, and you arrange your build by postponing Mind over Body and Heightened Senses until after Stamina is in place, at least.

You go with what you get the most of, which is regeneration --- more than enough to lift you through the early levels. And when you finally add those extra toggles, they will do something for you (SO levels) and won't wear you out. I've built nine WP characters with this philosophy and am building a tenth. The purely defensive toggles, the ones that aren't improving your regen or keeping you free from mezzes, simply ain't worth the effort before both QR and Stamina.

Early Stamina. Take the toggles when you feel you need 'em.

I'm not going to claim that WP/DB is unplayable; I have one. If you want to make a team oriented WP/DB tanker, that's probably the way to go. You lose the best single target attack in your secondary; you also lose your DoT combo, which helps Willpower specifically. You've also chased defense bonuses at the expense of accuracy and to hit bonuses, which I think are important in Dual Blades. But if you are going to be a team tanker with Dual Blades, that's probably as good a build as you can get.

Dual Blades goes well with Dark Armor (which needs a low endurance attack set) and with Fire, Stone, and maybe Invuln (skippable powers) better than it does with Willpower. But since they were introduced at the same time, a lot of people have tried to make it work, and maybe some have succeeded.

I abandoned mine --- not because she's WP/DB, but because she's on Freedom. Maybe some day I will rescue all of those characters.

I wrote a guide to holding aggro with a Willpower tanker, which discusses the merits of the several secondaries from that perspective.

Of the ones you list, the only one I would avoid is Dual Blades. That set has problems with a primary as demanding as Willpower, which all but forces you to take eight of the nine powers. Dual Blades has a variety of attacks that are weak in their own right, and whose power is entirely dependent on the combo system. I'd avoid it unless you plan on soloing for almost your entire career and think you can get away with skipping Taunt.

The other secondaries you mention will all serve you well.

I have successfully tanked the ITF on a tanker with every tanker primary. I have also tanked the ITF on a /Willpower and an /Invuln brute, and a number of scrappers have acted as "main tank" for the AV fights, including non-aggro-managing builds like a regen and a reflex scrapper. Neither Stone nor Invulnerability are necessary.

Kinetics are not necessary; they are only needed for quality of life if you have a Stone tanker. Otherwise, Kinetics can be dangerous, especially if you fight to Rommie over the bridges, which is how I prefer to do it. More useful buff sets are Force Fields and Sonic. But the number one consideration for strategy is whether you have a Rad debuffer or not.

With practice, it just isn't that hard.

I have a stone tanker that I sometimes take to PvP events. I turn on granite, rooted, mudpots, and whirlwind, and just move around very slowly like a force of nature. There isn't much point to this, but that's generally true of PvP.

It's awesome for XP if you are running a debuff heavy team of auto exemped level 35+s who can actually damage them.

Last time I tried this, I ran with mostly 31-35s who were actually hoping to get a level or two out of the task force. We also did not have a debuffer. We got frustrated waiting for a GM after two of them spawned in the first mission and we couldn't scratch them.

Generally, there's not a large call to put Taunt enhancements in damage dealing attacks, certainly not at the expense of damage, accuracy, endurance, or recharge. The enhancements only mean that the Gauntlet effect lasts longer than it would otherwise.

The exception would be those attacks that do no damage, like Fault or Hand Clap. Since taunt auras no longer accept taunt sets, these attacks are probably the largest places to put them outside of Taunt itself.

Illusion controller: the phantoms, phantasm, and decoys are all going to become hot pink. So is the Spectral Terror. If the system goes that far I will make them all tiny and give them bunny ears.

Regen scrapper: moves from green to golden, to match the uniform.

A host of Dark Melee characters will get individually colored smoke.

If possible, I will make ice armor purely transparent or invisible, do the same with Granite, and find those tankers a lot more appealing to play.

Because you're Fire, you get enough weapon redraw from your primary; you won't notice it from AirSup.

On the other hand, since Shields is basically defense based, when you have enough primary powers for a smooth attack chain without noticeable pauses, you may want to consider a respec into the Jumping pool. Combat Jumping adds a couple points of defense at a negligible endurance cost, and that gets you that much closer to the cap. Super Jump goes everywhere but the Shadow Shard, and you can always buy the temp jet pack.

No.