MayorOfAngrytown

I can see that. I fiddled a bit with the IA/SS tank just for kicks, a lot easier - at least at early lvls - to just autopilot that one. Still, I'm not too worried about it. I may be new to tanks as an AT, but I'm most comfortable in melee and pretty used to filling the role brute-style. The disconnect is remembering I don't have the dmg and focusing on keeping mobs intent on me.

I noticed that. That's one that will have a chance to fire for each enemy hit, yes?

I haven't done much with this in mids yet, but has anyone given thought to a heavy processor build for dark/ice? I mean okay, fine, I could build for damage and get some respectable numbers out of it.

On the other hand there's a plethora of interesting Procs, like the aforementioned chance to heal from Call of the Sandman. I almost want to accept that this won't be a high dmg character and maximize mitigation and mob control.

A few examples, if any of these are totally crazy and worthless, let me know.:
(Assume the expense can be absorbed in one fashion or another)

Unspeakable Terror's chance to Disorient in CoF. Fear/Stun/Fear/Stun/Rinse/Repeat?

Call of the Sandman's chance to Heal and Induced Coma's chance to -Rech in FA

Pacing of the Turtle's -rech could go, well, anywhere. Fists perhaps?

I assume that since Dark Watcher's isn't an "Accurate" set that it won't fire for each enemy like an "accurate" to hit debuff proc might. I thought I saw Dechs mention that someplace regarding the healing procs (accurate/non-accurate). Can anyone clarify? There's a -rech proc in that set as well; 20% chance for 25% slow - pretty damn good.

Paragonwiki lists the Triumphant Insult proc as broken, anyone know if that's current? Stun chance in a taunt aura?

And just for kicks, the Ragnarok KD proc, in say Ice Storm from Arctic Mastery?

Spent yesterday's short gaming session speeding some tips on my brute (got to get those AMs), but should be able to get a few more lvls on the Schriffer (the dark/ice tank) before the weekend is out.

I was thinking sort of along those lines, but my only experience is from long ago and usually with sets that exacerbate it's end management problems. Why? I'll never know. What's the story with CoF and OG? Good, bad? Situational tools, always on?

My first though was to do something like dark/ice/soul, but maybe trying to add dmg is moot? Tanks get gloom like brutes, right?

It turns out you can *almost* make DA look like snow/fog, bonus. Tore through a few early levels with a sewer team. Still too low level to really say much, but an interesting combo. Definitely going to plug the kb hole as soon as I can though. Shouldn't be too tough to get him the one from Karma or Steadfast, or both (?).

I had started an Ice/SS the night before this thread, but only got to play for a minute. Seemed like a fun combo. It made me want to start an SS/?? brute, but that's another story. He's a keeper though. I'm not certain, but I think the two will play rather differently.

I'm pretty comfortable with micro-managing end from various brutes and scrappers; it looks like dark/ice will be an end challenge, but not terrible. There's always Cardiac now, although that might not be the best alpha for this combo. Definitely no clue there.

The trick for me learning tanking is going to be remembering that I'm not brooting. Found myself standing there whittling away at something while the team moved on to another group. Heh.

Awesome. The gf and I starting watching the series at the urging of her co-workers. I was surprised at how crazy epic the battles can get. It's been temping to base various characters off that universe. Heh. Almost bummed that we are so close to the end.

I'd be happier with kama models for dual blades. Bonus, those would fit in a lethal dmg set.

Actual Quatar for either DB or Claws would be hot as well, although the wrist blades in claws are a nice substitute.

Yeah, that has to be it. I couldn't say which spawn contained the illusionist Warden, but if that's an existing bug, it's definitely what I experienced.

Some of these other ones are pretty funny though.

Thanks again man. I do think Shatter is going to stay. There are times when mobs line up in a way (like doorways) that's just too juicy to give up.

I knew you got that together really quick, but it helps give me an idea of how to use multiples of sets to get where I want to be. My approach was to just use one of something for a while to get a feel on how bonuses add up. I also like the idea of taking a broad range of set bonuses, thinking that would suit /sd fairly well.

I noticed though that there's an extra 3% damage bonus that breaks the rule of 5's, and that resistances are down in favor of HP. That makes sense in one sense as I try to team when I can, and want to do more TFs which means running with buffers.

OTOH, I like the idea of the base resistances bolstering me under the soft-capped defenses. I also end up playing late-night PST hours, and I often am stuck soloing.

I only need a couple of shards before I can bump up to the Uncommon level Spiritual. I'll be taking the rech/healing line, so I'm curious to see how that impacts TG and OWTS. After that I'll fiddle around somewhat with the build some more.

I'm noticing too that I'm gaining inf a lot faster the more I put into this guy. I think I'll also mess around with a build that throws in a little purple just to have a goal. Any suggestions on staying soft-capped while going that route?

Working mad hours for the rest of this month, so might take a bit to get these things going.

Actually that sounds pretty cool. Something about "goldside" appeals to my closet revolutionary.

Been rolling around a few ideas based on that, but nothing solid character wise at the moment. I like the idea of the leader/mentor having the literal shield, and by passing along his knowledge to a set of previously scattered and disorganized youngsters he's acting on the idea of a metaphorical shield as well.

It also gives a bit of flexibility for individual back stories - how they came to be a student of the shield, within certain boundaries, seems fairly open. Some could be Resistance or Destroyers, others could come from no particular group - I had one idea that had a young mutant who seems powerless (completely unaware of powers) until the first time he picked up a sword, and that event leads to him being on the run, hiding in the sewers until he encounters the leader of this group. Just a thought though.

@Infernus, you have plans to go redside with him at any point? Not that it matters for the above, but just for general teaming.

Epic.

As someone who has unsubbed for various durations and returned a few times, I actually kind of support this.

I played at CoH launch, then unsubbed for a while. Came back when CoV dropped, and didn't come back to any of my old toons - I just started a slew of new villains really.

Each time I've returned it's been the same story - starting new toons and not really playing the old ones. I do have two names on one server that seem to be in use on the servers I actually play these days, but whatever. I'm not really all that attached. I would not really have been all that upset to return after a 2+ year absence to find that some of my toons had been un-named. 1 year would probably be a little harsh, but 2 or 3 years, whatever.

Now that I have one that I've gotten to 50, I'd be a little more irritated. Still, I would totally support a renaming policy that had a *long* timer on it for unsubbed accounts and allowed exceptions for level 50 characters.

Of course I suck at coming up with character names, so the chances of someone wanting one of the random strings of letters that I use as a name is fairly unlikely. I mean the first toon I even remotely stuck with was named Xryth. I'd have to hunt to figure out what server that's on. I also have "Consultant" on some random server too. (Comes off as The Consultant in game). Heck, people can have that one - never got into playing him, mostly made him in jest.

Having said all of that, I've only run into in-use names maybe a handful of times over dozens of alts - so it doesn't affect me that much either way. Heh.

Meh, maybe. But not because of this. :P

Why does this sentence remind me of the sad fact that I'll never has a regen brute?

I keed, I keed. I vaguely remember there being a relatively unanimous "that would be OP out the box" way back when.

In these days of ludicrous regen/recovery via sets bonuses and procs, do we still think so?

Yeah. I used to defend /EA too. I can relate. Bear in mind that I played it (and tried oh so hard to defend it) BEFORE the heal was added.

On a scrapper the stealth makes sense, I wanted it to make sense on a brute, but it just never did. I imagine the heal component helps quite a bit, but the resists (as you mention) are less than stellar which takes away from layering. Even if you soft-capped, without solid DDR you're going to eaten quick in certain instances. Without any sort of +HP component or decent resists I always felt one good hit away from death on any of my /EAs. Is Overload any good these days? I remember it being a pretty sweet T9, but that wasn't enough to save the set for me.

Dump the cloak on the Brute version and maybe add some other layer of mitigation in its place? Sorry, not trying to rehash the age-old /EA debate, just bitter that it never worked out for me back in the day. Scaling resists probably don't belong here, and added a speed component makes it too much like /SR or /Elec (even if it did make sense). I always considered /EA to be a sort of kinetic armor, maybe borrow the taunt aura ideas from wp, invul, sd, etc: A taunt aura with some sort of very minor debuff/buff component? Can't be damage though, that's already in /sd.

None of the sets are really as *bad* as they are portrayed on the forums, but /EA is just lackluster at best on Brutes. No, I've never IO'd one to the gills, but follow that discussion about any power set:

"But Set Y is awesome with <insert investment cost here>"

"Yes, but if you invest the same in Set X, the results are 'better.'"

I'm no numbers guru, but I'd wager that /SD eats /EA's lunch with equivalent investments in either. My only basis for said such is having tried every possible brute combo with /EA when CoV was fresh and new and comparing that rather painful experience to the awesome that I get from my WM/SD (current brute) and assorted other alt brutes.

Maybe I'm just soured on the set from past experience. For the record I never quite understood why it never proliferated to scrappers. Stalkers have it, scrappers might as well. As it is it's probably a better set for either of those ATs than brutes.

This I can support. More smashy love for brutes. Broadsword, Ice and MA plzkthx.

Gives me a whole new perspective on the "Battlemaster."

Nerdy confession time: I'm an oldbie too, although my 300 baud modem usually dropped me in the West Corner of the Park. :blush:

OMFG. I would say that you have no idea how funny that is, except that you probably do.

Signed.

OTOH, maybe if they gave /EA to scraps, they'd have to actually make it a viable set and port the fixes to Brutes. In which case, I still support this thread.

Wow. That's still alive and kicking?

Next you'll tell me that there's a Battletech MUSH site still going too.

Sorry, back to reading this rather interesting thread.

TBH I hadn't given a concept much thought. Actually, I haven't done any RP in Cox before, or in many years actually. I was mostly using the term 'phalanx' loosely; thinking it might be fun to try to mow through stuff with a group of shielders for kicks.

Of course there's the possibility that I play on Virtue out of some subconscious desire to do a little RP for nostalgia's sake, and some interesting ideas popped into my mind:

I don't know the GR backstory very well, but it seems there's some dimensional travel involved in Cole's various nefarious activities; perhaps in one of these excursions his agents captured many Cimeroran's and brought the back to places like the BAF (or worse). A few soldier's manage to escape and now must work under the radar in a foreign land to discover Cole's plans and how it affects their homeworld. Rescuing other captives would make for another possibility. I'm also not sure how aware Cimeroran's are of Paragon - the general military/citizenry that is, so there's the process of discovering that as well. Then there's the return home (and subsequent ITF, because really, who better to beat Rommy than some returning hometown heroes) One advantage here is that we could have all 3 ATs available. OTOH it wouldn't necessarily have to be an all shield team, since there are probably ways to simulate a particularly powerful Immunes of some sort or another.

I think the man-hole cover is universal, and I've wanted to do a costume with that for a while on my brute, just for kicks. One way to work that would be using one of the gang groups in Paragon, or several. Some sort of special "problem solving" team for the Trolls or Warriors would be kinda hilarious. IIRC not too hard to approximate a costume like that? It could also just be a group of folks who took matters into their own hands.

Vikings, Barbarians, probably some other historical/mythological groups that could be a basis. You guys did Spartans already, so I'll leave that be.

I'm trying to think of concepts that could easily include power sets like elec, dark, etc. Most of those, if one were to be strict about concept, would probably rule out some sets? I don't really know the norm for something like that.

Oooh, I just thought of something else - maybe there is like a robot fight league (Clockwork for gold-side), but a few of the bots revolt and escape, there are tech/science ways to RP just about any powers I'd imagine.

I'm open to ideas though, would be cool to hear if anyone had a concept in the back of their mind.

I can't really think of a concept team that my shield brute would fit into though, that would be more of a "let's get together and stomp some TF #$% from time to time" sort of thing.