Kractis_Sky

Last I heard it was the case that brutes would not be seeing Ice anytime soon (ice melee anyway). In a post by Castle, he related that since the slow secondary was mechanically embedded into the melee attacks such that as fury built it would also alter the strength of the slow effect and thus was deemed too powerful. This was stated long before the forum migration and good luck finding it. The devs said they did try.

On topic: IO set diversity extending to purple sets for heals, defense, and resistance. More general sets for ranged AoE, sets with better +rez. SS, stone, em scrap (unlikely, but you said wish).

A lot of stuff is on the horizon, and until that is here I find it difficult to ask for more. I'd rather them stick to perfecting what we have.

To the OP: chalk up another for "yes, its a good power; put a LotG rech if u can" crew.

Werner: fire/shield actually is a good farmer. I use a build similar to the one found in the "Make me Immortal" thread a few months back that doesnt use fitness pool but has aid self, and uses the incin > scorch > creme > scorch, on average, with FSC and energy torrent with the FF proc for added recharge to taste (is soft-capped, 95% ddr, 152% rech, and i17 compliant with BotZ adjustment - pooled toons for this - not cheap). Not to mention the most important farming factor: I CAN ENJOY IT FOR HOURS ON END (if I want/am able to).

Merits are good: earn them through SF/TF's, specific story arcs, killing monsters, and prolly some other things I can't remember. Save them up for the merit venders to redeem (be sure that you scroll through their ENTIRE menu for the rhandom rolls and at particular levels as some good recipes arn't listed at all levels (example: steadfast unique if searching as a lvl50).

Sorry didnt have time to ask this during the Q&A, but...

Can get the vomit emotes??

I have a spine/regen thats decked out with the reptile looks and I worked a lot with the costume creater to come up with *Spit* - a mutant that was bit by his pet radioactive komoto dragons when his radio fell in the tub while bathing with them. Was shocking - back story FTW!!

Now all i need is a spit attack and VOMIT EMOTE!!! HEAR THAT, DEVS!?!?!?!!?


*******GIMME TEH VOMIT EMOTE OR GIMMEH SPIIIIIT !!!111ELEVEN!!!111*****

Regen and WP seem most fitting for a reptile character. Too bad tanks and brutes dont get access to regen.

Newest Scrapper Challenge: Deal with the pending IO set revamp of the borked sets.

BTW, I got my 69mo vet badge, I think I'll beat this challenge, too.

Start slotting coping skills.

Since we have open beta, I'd like to add that defenders, like rad/sonic (or if they get fire), may become a lot more interesting with their new inherent - if it goes live. Grrr... can figure out how to link things, so here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=217380

Well, If odds are against having a whip as a power set, what are the odds that scrappers would get access to a set that would give fire, toxic, AND -rez like the MM whip (o.O) Maybe in Kinetics

I think the OP should roll a tank using the dual-build option: one for the team/brick and one for his scranking pleasure. Evaluate based on preferences and feedback.

I can only think of a handful of comic characters in which whip-ish weapons were used: Indian Jones, Omega Red, etc are some examples. I personally dont see whips as very tank-ish, brute-ish, scrap-ish or stalker-ish. I think they are right where they should be. I'm sure some people disagree.

Oh well, maybe in CoH2: The Wrath of Dr. Kahn....

BWAHAHAHA! High five! *puts up hand* ... No, really... c'mon... *hand falls slightly* I just gonna keep it up here, then.

I have the following tanks at lvl50:

Inv/stone - stone is hard on end bar; good mitigation; IO sets with kin combat and +def sets in primary make it very sturdy.

Wp/stone - just a non-stop bag of *SMASH* very fun, very survivable due to stuns and KD gives chance to regen well --*GET FAULT*

stone/dm - stone/ is good with anyting, but granite slows down the tools of DM too much to make it really shine unless there is a kin around -- cant really say I recommend this build. Better with other secondary, but see * below.

inv/dm - very sturdy - this synergy shouldnt be underestimated at all, especially if build for recharge - the tools are just great. Add some Def like in the primary ala Call Me Awsome's builds and this actually can predictably out-last my Stone/dm, even when using granite (currently re-tooling stone/dm to see if im doing something wrong). Plus if Im the only one around, my damage and movement is still good enough to (slowly) take out the spawn.

I've had other tanks that come and go but I did not list them due to never really getting into the subtleties of the builds and losing interest.

To answer the origenal question: Stone/Ice Stone/stone is historically the two I think of for pure tank builds.

* As I solo a lot, I dont find Stone/ as fun to play. I had A LOT of help with stone/dm and really like /dm in general, so I had to try it.

For those interested, the best slotting on Siphon Life found in the scrapper forums was with HO's with some really good numbers with Hecatomb and other HO's but I hate to see Heca not slotted to at least the 10% recharge.

Which really makes the BotZ change interesting for me. It *SEEMS* that the devs think that the bonuses are so far gone that it's detrimental to creativity - theirs and ours - not a balance issue. I mean people would go so far out of their way to slot 5 sets of these and take the easy road (and using only 3 slots at that.) *IF* this is so, BotZ as it stands "un-nerfed" is in contradistiction to my artistic point about builds. So much that the BotZ "nerf" wasnt a nerf for balance but to enhance creativity - BotZ was so bad to them it was degeneratly so. Yes, there are some peeps that will cry "it's my poragative." I say "And the dev's, too." A point that I dont think many technical peeps caught, but since the scrapper forums can so easily tweak builds, I think it was seen as "well, heres another challange!!"

The game isnt balanced around IO's, so any arguement that involves them cant involve balance by definition.

The real question is if Hami-O's are imbalanced, as Warner implies. I really hope not. The sacrifiese in time, inf to make shields like SR are emense, and is a perfect example of the artistic nature of this game that truely sets it apart from all others. That you can forge a toon that is truely more than the sum of it's enhancement and is integrated so well. Pitty that this would change.

I have both dm/shield and SR. My SR was around since i1 and is IO'ed out, shields is not. I just wanted to see the diff. I dont have the time/inf to spend making shields what I'd like it to be, both because the requirements are too high and I'd rather diversify toons.

In short, generic SO/IOs only being factored - /shields and /SR are distict enough animals and should remain as is. Both are capable.

The animations with reguard to the "preparation" to attack look like the where barrowed from the CoT trying to tap the souls of fallen foes like in a lot of places in CoV esp in the cemetary in Sharkhead and Pork Oak near the fort. Then some attacks that were new some old: very Tai Ji, Ba Gua*, "soft-style" Kung-Fu. Some of it still looked like interestingly edited footage. In short still way early to judge.

*guess we cant say truely Ba Gua because we cant tell if the foot work marks off the Tai-ji (yin-yang) symbol. Im just saying a lot of it looks like the trap-absorb-return fluidity.

So if I understand Umbra's mech, he wants something like defiance from blasters, but instead of buffing subsequent powers on an activated basis they would be charged/saved like in a "capasitor" or sorts (along with the secondary effect) and discharged with a "finishing" attack. Okay! Going to happen - IDK. Kudos on the thought, tho; it is nice.

I dont really care for that many "leaching" buffs. I'd take so long getting myself ready in midst of battle, everything would be dead and thats not....scrappery. The neat thing on regen is that they're not baddie dependant. Sounds a lot like an ice/dm tank. Hmm... now that I put it that way... lol.

Agreed with how doubtful the armor set would be. Im just guessing on the vortex unless thats just a power-up animation, which is more likely.

It would be an interesting spin on the set if it sacrifieced a build-up for siphon speed (just saying). The power of which would be mitigated then with the length of animations.

All I can really sure about is that imma get all "KAMAYA-MAYA!!" on you, and junk.

As for the Kin set, looks les like Dan and more like Gen (old Tai Chi looking dude in Street Fighter 3). Looking for siphon speed and siphon power (baddies slower and hitting with less damage as both of yours improve) and KU/KB as forms of mitigation and empowerment. Video looked like there may have been an aura: possible kin armor or aura to keep them at bay?? Im hoping the DPA will be as good as it LOOKS.

Incarnates *drool* very nice. No speculation there.

Staff sounds good. No speculation there either.

You could pull a slot from weave and stick it into SS for the set of BoZ and switch doc'ed wounds to Mirical for extra AoE if you really wanted to edge it. Then take out the def/end LotG and replace it with a cyto or lyso Hami-O. (I dont care about the extra 9% acc and the hami will sacrifice some health). Or if you want more ranged, put the extra weave slot in energize and slot Numinas.

Id also put the steadfast unique in grounded and slot another reactive armour (not sure if that means much to you for the KB protection; on my kat/elec it means nothing)

From a kat standpoint, I like /wp over /regen only because of redraw.
I really like my kat/elec, probably wont perform as well high-end, but all kinds of neat tricks: layered protection, damage aura, 2 end tools, improved recharge. Oh, ntm a cool enfuriated glow from the toggles.

This actually is for all AT: have a lvl50 from each primary - at which point you could freely make that AT from a mix of any powers so long as you had to limit powers to that AT's power sets and primaries stayed primary and secondaries secondary.

I'd like to vote for the complete opposite and have granite turn us all into a big black monolithic slab, on end, like in 2001 Space Odyssey - with absolutely no mobility or attacks and all defenses/res/regen/hp/threat magnitude capped.


J/k, I like the idea inherent to current Granite that has a significant trasformation component - thats part of the penalties of such thick/great armor. I can see, tho, that the winds of change are blowing and would be accepting of change as long as the covering was total, like ice armors -- could we control the opacity?? Or could you do a version of "swap ammo" to it one option old Granite other option new??
(oh, yeah, then change Rooted, too)

1. Use the second build option at a trainer: make one fire/regen/pyre, the other fire/regen/em - test.
2. Energy torrent may afford you the time to click off a heal. There is some learning involved to get the scope of its effect. It can be surprising.
3. Fireball is just destructive fun!
4. Great point Santorican

Concept builds not withstanding (heck, I'll take presence pool if it fits my concept), I have found that ToF has been margenalized by IO sets, specifically an over abundance of +def. For toons that couldnt achieve such levels of defense, ToF provided this ability along with the so called "soft hold." Even with air superiority on can achieve similar mitigation and with damage. With the advent of IO sets, by and large, when I choose to play dm, part of the reason I do is because 3 powers (ToF, SP, taunt) wont be picked so that I can diversify to/concentrate on other powers.

The spectrum of all melee in your assessment is quite large. Each would have different expectations. Stalkers in particular would find the fear and -to hit useful to make time to use their tricks, brutes to help build fury, tanks to help tone down a tough boss for the team. Not to mention PVP benifits of spamming fear.

While I find the entire discussion interesting and appropriate in its approach, it doesnt sway me into selecting it very often in my builds. The instances in which I find myself in really tough content, I'd sooner pop a purple, orange or green rather than think: I wish I had ToF.

Origenal GFS doesnt if already drawn, but with alt smaller sword (which can be used instead of the big one with alt animations) doesnt at all- only the "whoosh." Depends how much you want the biggy. (IIRC)

I believe Pounding slugfest gives 10% regen (higher than rope-a-dopes 8%) and then coupled with perfect zing's 10% for frankin-slotting attacks (using most appropriate recipes of each set used max of 5 times). Thats 2 from PS and 3 from PZ, and the 6th slot use elsewhere, you techniqually could get higher. Also taking slots from hightened senses (serendip) and putting them into footstomp and then slotting zingers there. This is the pattern i tried with my stone tank - and got up to %2.56 or 50hp a sec. with out EE(for my granite brick build)


I think you are right in thinking this is overkill. Most WP/ tanks go for builds with max hp and rez capping to smash/leathal for *survivability*, but as you state you're going for *max regen*, so the point might be moot. At this rate, however the likelyhood that you could muster enough damage to kill whats attacking you needing this much regen is low - conceptually interesting but practically - fail. For survival: you simply cannot regen through the damage for tanking.

cherry-pick = make the baddest toon conceivable?

Blaze
Bitter Ice Blast
Statesman's FIst
Spawn Recluses Towers
Hami Powers
Kill Monster
some pets
some defensive messures
...

Yeah, loosing interest too. I do understand the "I'd like to just see how it would work" mentality.