Madadh

Add my vote to the above advice.

Mostly agreed with most of the write-ups, but these 3 I felt the need to clarify, or contradict, or expand on...

Dominator- A controller crossed with a blaster. Loses the controllers normal buffs/debuffs and gets a lot of attacks in exchange. And the 'Domination' ability, to boot.

Corruptor- Basically, a villain version of a Defender. Except the Blast set is primary, and the buff/debuff set is secondary.

Stalkers- Scrapper-lite, steam-lined for stealth and up close assassination attacks. While lite compared to scrappers (and also Brutes and Tanks, natch) they are still much tougher than most every other AT, and quite serviceable strait-up melee types.


Lastly, while I usually agree with Adeon, I'm going to disagree on avoiding WP. WP makes a fine first tank. Yes, the aggro holding isn't as strong as other Tankers, not even close, but some of the games you've come from will have equipped you well enough to deal with that. And other than that, WP really, really shines. Just don't get PLed to 50, and then expect to tank for a x8 mish with a team of only other brand new players and I think you won't have any problems with an Willpower tank should you decide to go that route.

First off, "Welcome to the game!"

Well, Lady Viltrumite will be able to take on giant hordes when she matures just fine, but all ATs and many combos could, too, not just tanks and trollers. So you generally enjoy the tank role, then I'd say the Invul/SS is a great choice to learn on, and to achieve that goal.

There are tons of builds that can do this. Tons. TONS! And yes, there is a 'buffer' style class, that would be the Defender. Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds also have a Buff set, but it's the secondary powerset for those classes, meaning key powers come latter, and are a tad weaker in general than the defender variant. (Also, as a note, the 'buffer' powersets aren't pure 'buffs' but are buffs, debuffs, and/or heals, with different sets having differing mixtures. The debuff heavy sets tend to solo better.)

All that said, the Invul/SS combo should be a rock solid choice, and if you're looking for some more help on build specifcs, without getting TOO specific, I'd look at this link.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=133483
In general, Call Me Awesome has a lot of really solid advice and posts on Invul tanks and it seems to be good both for the new and to vets.

Glad to hear it! Again, welcome. And yeah, prolly more to learn than you may even expect, as this game plays a bit different than many I've tried.

And as an aside, I play on Justice a lot, and am on a fair amount, feel free to shoot a tell in-game. @Madadh is my global, and I'd be happy to help in game, too, should you want.

Cheers!

I've put Parry on auto, too, on occasion. If I'm in melee and there is any pause in my attack chain, I at least do some damage, and build Def. But, most fights I'm preempting in a lot even then.

Hmm. Then in all likelihood, I have my very own lvl 37 D3! Yay; sorta....

Can it really be a D3 at level 35?

Ah.. He was talking about AVs not GMs... Mea culpa... I humbly stand corrected. Since WE had been discussing GMs I sorta assumed. And that's sometimes not the smartest thing to do....

I worked for my Shivans and my Nukes. Do they then count again...

I think the point is...

Yes, it's an impressive feat. Not many people could accomplish it.

It's a far sight less impressive that it would have been before I20, though.. Not your fault though, SK, for using all the tools provided and not taking away from what you did accomplish, but I think many of the naysayers are right, even if not very polite, or diplomatic; it DOES feel different.

But, why the heck does it matter? You did it. Nobody can say you didn't. If they will only be impressed if you do it with an 1980s era KB, and no mouse, with your hands cuffed and typing with your toes, so what? Then they won't be impressed. It's not like the EULA has rules for what counts when soloing a GM. For those that are impressed, great. But, it's not like those that aren't are guilty of some sort of heresy. The GM-soloing DID get a boat load easier with Lore Pets. Those that think it didn't are deluding themselves.. So what if some folks aren't impressed by a feat that uses them. I'd say they have just as legitimate reason not to be impressed as people did when objecting to Shivan use before.. In fact a I19 tank with Shivans taking out a GM might be more impressive to me than the same tank with Lore pets in I20 doing it.

Not that I'm supporting him, just supporting truth and fairness in advertising; I think his quote was taken from before Issue 20, so..... And, if anyone does think that truth is absolute, and therefore that it must be true or false for all time, then even then, this statement was prefaced with, "As things now stand," so.....

I wouldn't make an invul without it..

How fast does it tick? And, would it actually 'help' on a team build, or is it going to be mostly helpful during soloing? If it's best for soloing, I can find other things to do with the power slot, and enhancement slots.

You are not alone. Almost all my villains are rogues now, for this very reason. I wish I could earn Rogue Merits, but, that's the price I knowingly pay for more access to teaming.

I can certainly see both sides of this. But, my $.02 worth is that, all the extra goodies, outside of your core powers are, kinda a different animal. Vet powers, temps, paid for powers, day jobs, etc are all separate, in my mind, than powers that you spend slots on. If they choose to have some or all of them disabled in some limited amount of content, so be it. Now, if they said you could no longer use them in *any* content, then I'd be much more with the up-in-arms camp...

All that said, if the uber high end stuff was going to disallow any of the *special class* of powers, I'd vote it be paid for ones, as opposed to the earned ones. I mean, if this is all supposed to be the best, most earned, elitist stuff, I think earned powers (through in-game accomplishments) make more sense to be available than stuff that is based solely on the capacity or desire of the person playing the game to spend cash.

Don't get me wrong, I've spent the money, and accrued the vet badges, and earned in-game temps, too, so it's not like I have a bias one way or the other, but one does feel a tad more meritorious for Incarnate end game action... And it's not the one I paid real money for.

So much this. 5 tips are pretty fast, usually. 2 days worth and you've got a Hero Merit. Or Villain merit, but you said Def, so I assumed. 4 days worth and you can get most any non-purple, non-PVP IO in the game. That plus regular merits from the occasional TF (and WSTs are worth double merits), and even fairly expensive builds get much more manageable, price-wise.

Thanks so much for the feedback. I hadn't ever used Pain on a Corr before, and I guess I didn't look at Soothing Aura's numbers close enough. Yeah, that's pretty paltry. Thanks for pointing that out. Also, thanks for the link. I'd seen that write-up of Silas' before, but WAY before I'd even thought to make a Pain Corr... Totally forgot about it since then. GLad to reread through it.

I'll juggle some stuff around and see what I can come up with.

In the meanwhile, any more suggestions or feedback from anyone else out there with experience using Pain on a Corr would be welcomed.

The "Follow the Tank" mentality works like this.

It is presumed that:
1) The tank is trying to gather as many of each group to him.
2) The tank will stay in melee range of those he has gathered.
3) The other melee types will also be attempting to enter melee.
4) A percentage of the non-melee types will be very close to melee some percentage of the time, to use short ranged attacks, or PBAOEs.
5) The tank has an aura that has a taunt element, or a damage component, and that it is on.
6) The tank will be attacking and thus using gauntlet, and that those attacks are most likely melee, or PBAOEs.

If most or all of those presumptions are correct, being close to the tank is ideal positioning. Most if not all of the melee types will be in PBAOE range (of Heal Aura, or Leadership toggles) as will a fair percentage of the close blasting types. Heal other, and similar powers of tat nature, have a good deal more range, so if a specific team outside that range gets in trouble there is a good chance that they are in range of that, if they haven't headed off on their own to tackle a totally different group. And, by being in such close proximity to the tank provides a great deal of protection in that aggro will most likely go to the tank first, then any of the other melee types about.

Yes, there are times when this strategy is all bad. Against enemies with lots of AOE attacks, it's pretty much suicide if you're squishy. But I'm specifically responding to the "I'll never get the 'Follow the Tank.'" If by that you meant that you'll never get why someone would want to do that 100% of the time, I'd totally agree. If you don't get that mentality ever, I hope I've been able to explain it's advantages in a lot of situations.

All that said, I wish to point out that I at no point condoned auto-follow, aura rocking, or failing to attack. Nor did I suggest to blindly follow and not consider what was going on. If a fair number of the assumptions above aren't true, one should us a different strategy. If the team is a tank, a def, and 6 blasters/trollers, etc, and all the rangey types seem to stay at max distance and rain death for example, the follow the tank should obviously not be used.

And speaking of War Mace, I quite like it paired with SD, to get back to the OPs question. If you've not already made up your mind, I'd give Mace some consideration.

It might have been, for all I know, but, as I said when I posted it, it wasn't complete yet, but was getting pretty close. It's a lot closer now, but still not quite there. I took it down though, as it was distracting from the topic I was hoping to get help with.

I am totally getting that impression. If I could free up 3 more slots, that would be worth a lot, but the one slot, doesn't seem to me that it'll be a big help anywhere that I can see. It's fun, yet I agree maddening on some levels.


You are correct about how Purp bonuses work. And that's a great idea. Because I knew I wasn't likely to slot any more purps in this build any time soon that never ccured to me. But I think that would do the trick quite nicely. If and when I can drop some more purples into this thing, I may have to respect to lose that power, and then probably spend a week agonizing over what to do with a single power and no slots.. lol