Nihilii

I don't want to be a party pooper, but I'd like to mention that my own testing gave me somewhat different results than that list. Pet AI, difference between melee and ranged, added effects on powers can change the numbers around a fair bit.

That said, Cimerorans definitely ranked top for ST DPS in my testing as well, especially in a "no tohit buffs for the player" situation as their own defense debuffs let them land hits easier than most other pets.

My FA/SS/Soul tanker did more damage (ST and AOE) than my scrappers (including a FM/SD) as well as having more survivability - for my specific playstyle, that is, popping inspirations as needed and tanking highend content.

It's about all there is to it. FA/SS/Soul is an outlier as these two powersets and epic interact exceptionally well with each other. For example, doublestacked Rage would give you almost twice normal tanker damage (going from 200% to 360%, albeit with 20 seconds out of 120 spent dealing less damage due to crashes), and Gloom fills a gap in a SS chain.

That said, any well built Fire/anything tanker can give low/medium damage scrappers a run for their money. Burn is really big, especially on ATs where it doesn't cause stuff to scatter to the four winds.

I enjoy pretty much all content, but obviously the more dynamic it is and the less arbitrary requirements, the better.

I wish there'd be more reward incentive for playing at higher difficulties, as I'm weak-willed and will often return to the fastest path.

Yes. Generally, any system with a dualcore processor and decent ram (2+ gigs, make it 4 or above for a comfortable experience these days) will do the trick. You might have to lower graphic settings for it to work if you run into issues.

You just start two instances of CoH one after another and play like normally. One command that is useful to type is /maxinactivefps 1 - 1, or any other number, basically the maximum number of frames you want that window to have while you're not playing it. The lowest the better, as this frees up more resources so the instance you're playing is smoother.

Off the top of my head:

Follow Up should be slotted as an attack rather than a tohit power, it's an integral part of your attack chain, for the damage buff as well as its normal damage mostly, the tohit is an added extra that isn't critical given the high amounts of tohit you get from other powers on a widow.

I don't believe the second end reduction helps a lot in TT:A, TT powers have a much lower cost than the Leadership versions, and given that you have the Cardiac alpha, the bonus that second slot gives is minimal because of ED.

The psi res IW gives is minimal and not really worth enhancing. Stick to the base slot, and put your steadfast res/def in there.

Foresight is a defense power first and foremost and should be enhanced as such. The res to psionics should again just be considered as an extra.

Combat Jumping gives jump height but not jump speed, it's usually not enhanced for jump. Its end cost is tiny. Put one defense slot in it and call it a day.

In my opinion, it's important to have a means of keeping mobs around you for a melee character. Widows lack aggro auras, so it's either Confront (for ST targets, will always work) or an AoE immob (will hit multiples, but needs to stack to hold bosses and duration is generally lower) - Elec Fences is a rather good one, if you like the Mu pool.

I see little point in Static Discharge, it's a cone that does about the same damage as Ball Lightning, which is a targeted AoE, making it much easier to use as well as being able to hit up to 6 more targets.

Mind Link is often better slotted with a mix of def/rech enhancements. HOs are obviously out of your price point, but you can mix and match cheap def sets.

Overall, you seem to have a lot of attacks, to the point that I believe you always would have some overkill. In my opinion, it's more efficient to settle on a specific single target attack chain and add AoEs on top of that. That said, I have friends who hate the idea of repeating the same pattern over and over so YMMV.

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Trying to not change too many powers as well as staying within the 40M inf range (plus the IOs you already have), here's what I'd go with personally:

SS/Fire takes that expectation, beats it up, grabs its lunch money and runs away cackling like a madman.

I don't mind trials, but it certainly would be nice if they got rid of the absurdly high warm bodies requirements for starting one.

Any so-called difficulty in trials results from having to deal with random people, not the actual task itself.

The most likely reason a S/L/E/N softcapped DA is going to die would be significant defense debuffs.

Shield caps DDR.

You do the math...

Team?...

You'll be fine, don't worry.

The Apex and TinM change is certainly a step in the right direction. Now, we need to be able to start these TFs solo.

Alternatively, wait for CoH:F, but logging 8 accounts is tedious, likely takes multiple computers, and that's not good for the planet! Think of our kids, let us start TFs solo.

I'd like to pick Vanguard or Polar Lights/Drones for concept purposes, but Romans are so far above other pets in ST DPS (which is what I want from lore pets) I will most likely pick these.

Personally, I think the nice choices from a minmaxing perspective are
ST melee DPS : Romans
ST ranged DPS / GM hunting without regen debuffs : Longbow
AoE damage : Clockwork, with the caveat that if the chain power still isn't fixed (I haven't checked if it is), it steals XP so may steal rewards
Buff : Phantoms
Debuff : Storm Elementals

I like Polar Lights (as well as Drones). Not every concept calls for a hulking or even human-sized pet behind you, and for those who do, all other pets are like that.

Honestly, your SS/fire is far better than all of your other 50s right now.

I'd keep him for BAF and Lambda for sure, and if you want to reroll something, in my opinion, an emp/sonic/soul defender is by far the best character you can bring to a PUG Keyes (as well as being generally useful in most team situations involving tough targets thanks to /sonic bringing very high res debuffs). Your success is directly tied to other people not being disintegrated, and the best way to ensure this is with tremendously powerful healing.

I'd probably go with invul, seems more thematic for a minotaur.

"This is NOT going to be a rant about the Keyes trial being supposedly impossible to complete or even too hard."

"I mean, I can see that I could carry greens for myself and spam as needed to survive, but what about all those other guys being disintegrated? Not a chance everyone or even half of them are going to pop insps, in a PUG."

Some have missed these, but you're the first to manage to miss all two while adding absolutely nothing else to the discussion on your very first reply, Zombie Man. Congratulations on not being able to read anything that isn't glowing praise of the game - I knew if anyone could make it, it would be you.

I don't see any other task in the game where the success is tied to a specific mechanic only found in a select few powersets or specific incarnate powers (you all make it sound like Rebirth is the only valid Destiny choice ; it doesn't seem unreasonable to craft one specifically for Keyes, but it's not the only option), save for maybe Hamidon, which I dislike for that very reason, but at least Hamidon tries to involve most characters with the melee/ranged/hold/heal differences.

This is going to be a rant. This is NOT going to be a rant about the Keyes trial being supposedly impossible to complete or even too hard. If you choose to read it that way, you have only yourself to blame.

So I tried Keyes, on a melee character, on a PUG. Everything was pretty fun up until the final fight with Antimatter. Not only there's a bazillion special things going on at once that apparently require you to not fight near other people (super nice for meleers when there's only one target in range) and sometimes move away from the only target in range (see previous parenthesis), but disintegration apparently either ignores resistances or does ludicrously high damage, seeing as I took ~1900 consistently on the 4th pulse.

The only thing that seemed to help were... heals. Heals, heals, heals.

This seems so very ludicrously silly to me. This game went away with the Holy Trinity, why reintroduce it in the highend game?

Not to mention it makes empaths and pain domination much more effective at the task than, well, pretty much every other powerset out there including most of the other support powersets. I'm sure many bubblers feel super happy about their effectiveness in the new trial, that is, the remaining three or four players that still play one despite getting shafted again and again by the endgame.

Merely getting killed would be frustrating but, I guess, sort of bearable ; but the fact that it regenerates a huge chunk of Antimatter's health is so completely silly. Basically, if a very specific subset of specific ATs isn't on the ball, you're screwed. I mean, I can see that I could carry greens for myself and spam as needed to survive, but what about all those other guys being disintegrated? Not a chance everyone or even half of them are going to pop insps, in a PUG.

To me, the success of the whole league is basically tied to how well the few people with ally healing powers perform. Green numbers or die. Yay for diversity.

It's too bad, because I really had a blast with the trial up to that part, and even the Antimatter encounter with all its melee-hate wouldn't be so bad if Disintegration just killed people rather than healed him (I could see his stats being beefed up to make up for that, obviously, so *everyone* would be useful in bringing him down rather than, you know, heaaaaallzzzz).

On another note, the pulse damage during the earlier phases kills you through the invulnerable part of self-rezzes. Sigh...

I like the pricing shown so far.