StrykerX

Most mobs do knockdown, not knockback, so even a single point of KB resist will stop things like Earthquake. A single -KB IO is plenty for most explosions and melee attacks. The real nasties are force or energy attacks, like Nemesis' staff blast. I think one or two grenade type powers are pretty high magnitude too. But really, one -KB IO and you'll be knocked down so seldom that it comes as a real surprise when it does happen.

Also, I believe most of the few things that can knock you back through one IO can do so through two or maybe even three... I believe Force Bolt and the Nemesis Staff blast (the real one, not what players get) are up in the teens or even twenties on KB magnitude but I'm not 100% sure. I've only used a single IO or a single Kinetic Crash set (which I know they can overcome) or a Scrapper / Tank / Brute KB protection power (which can't be overcome by anything).

Checking Mids, I see that Force Bolt and Power Thrust are in the mid to high teens on magnitude. Hurricane is just over 8 for a Defender, but in my experience mob Hurricane isn't that high (and besides, it repels no matter how much -KB you have) and Gale is just over 10. I'd say 12 points will stop everything but Power Thrust, Force Bolt, and similar attacks (like Nemesis' blast), and dropping all the way down to 4 will only open you up to a few pretty rare attacks like Gale. Hand Clap might also knock you back with one, but really you have to ask yourself if being knocked down a couple times per hour at worst is worth freeing up two slots... because that's as bad as I can remember it being on my squishies or my Fire / Fire Tanker (who uses a single -KB IO and does fine).

I have a bad habit of going into Scrapperlock on a Blaster and forgetting to watch my health. The pavement smacking me in the face tends to snap me out of it... unless I have Rise of the Phoenix.

CoH definitely likes lots of RAM. On my old PC I got a very noticeable improvement going from 1 GB to 2 GB. If you aren't doing anything important in the background you might try rebooting before you run CoH to be sure you have as much CPU power and RAM open as possible.

CO seems like it's halfway between CoX and a traditional WoW-style MMO. It has equippable gear, "standard" MMO missions, and so forth... so depending on how hard to get the good gear is we may well see farmers moving to CO if they can make more money selling CO's make believe cash than they can selling CoX's make believe cash. Farmers generate a lot more items than they can use, but also a ton of inf... I'm not sure whether a lot of them leaving would cause prices to go up (lower supply of recipes and salvage) or down (less inf generated means less inflation). Personally, I doubt the impact will be that big either way.

Wait, so if you keep the aggro yourself and stay out of melee range a GM won't use PBAoEs even if they're recharged and none of its ranged attacks are? Interesting... I assumed that they would still attack secondary targets if they had an attack that could do so ready and not one that can hit their primary target.

I've built a couple of angel types. A Broadsword / Shield Scrapper is great for the classic angel look (the Energy shield looks great colored light gold) and I have a Fire/Dark corruptor fallen angel. Some other possibilities:

Archery Blaster for the cherub / Cupid look... pair it with Energy for an all ranged hover Blaster (perma-Boost Range) if you want to stay close to theme, since none of the Blaster secondaries seem really "angelic". Maybe /Fire for the "flaming sword" thing, but mind blasts, gadgets, or electricity don't really say "angel" to me.

Invulnerability / Energy Melee Tanker... a bright, shining warrior who smites enemies with glowing hands. Or Inv/Fire for the flaming swords.

Empathy/Energy Defender... recolor the energy blasts gold after I16 and you have healing plus light blasts. Won't solo well but great on a team.

Dark/Dark Scrapper or Defender... hey, the Angel of Death is still an angel, right?

Demon Summoning MM (after Going Rogue)... come on, the irony value alone is worth it.

I wouldn't bother. Against a spawn of 10 you'll probably get a couple of enemies hit when it goes off and a couple more every 10 seconds (assuming 20% chance to proc). That might be handy on a Defender, but a Mastermind is already dishing out so much damage that an extra 72 damage (at level 50) each to a few mobs won't really matter. Look a it this way... that damage is about the same as a fully enhanced tier one Defender blast. Ever notice how many tier one blasts it takes for a Defender to kill something? So... yeah. And against a single target it's adding a bit over 14 average damage per proc every 10 seconds... is 1.4 DPS really worth a slot to you? It wouldn't be to me.

If you have slots to burn then go for it, it's free damage. But if you have anything else needing those slots you'd be better off putting them elsewhere.

Plant Control is really nice on teams at any level thanks to Seeds of Confusion. Not only does Seed provide hard control that's up every spawn with good slotting, it speeds up clearing a spawn by making them damage themselves. My Plant/Storm normally opens up with Seeds and then drops Freezing Rain on the mob and lets the team mop them up.

At high levels any Controller is helpful, but at low levels Plant is the only one with AoE controls available every spawn (unless the team is mowing things down in under 30 seconds, in which case no controls are needed). I'd probably go Plant/Kin for the absolute most useful TF Controller... Plant/Storm is fun but Kin has Speed Boost, Fulcrum Shift, and a good AoE heal to keep the Tankers and Scrappers going. Plus it's hard not to get a team on a Kin...

It does appear busted, but the "name invalid" warning doesn't actually stop you from inputting the set and using it. My guess is that when the buuild URL function was added, the author put in verifications on power set names to be sure that they matched what the URL was going to have in it. Sadly, it looks like building a set from the ground up and ignoring the invalid name warning is the only way to add one now.

My Bots/Traps runs Assault, Tactics, Maneuvers, Charged Armor, and Combat Jumping without Stamina or any recovery uniques. I have about 14% recovery from sets, which is a little over half of unslotted Stamina. I also have significant endurance reduction slotted in pretty much everything and didn't take any of my personal attacks. I find that I can beat an EB before running out of endurance, and can beat a full AV using 2-3 medium blues... that's probably not good enough for some people but it's plenty good enough for me.

The big key is to be sure to slot Web Grenade well for endurance reduction. You'll tend to spam it, and it adds up quickly. Make sure you have 1-2 SOs worth of endurance reduction in any toggle and any click power you expect to use more than once every 30 seconds and you can skip Stamina just fine... carry a couple blues for emergencies but you'll rarely need them. If you use veteran attacks regularly or use the Robotics attacks, on the other hand, you need Stamina or uniques... those are endurance hogs. You could always take Aid Other and drop one or both recovery uniques in it... it will come in handy as a heal and as long as you use it every couple of minutes you keep the recovery bonuses. Plus you can get Aid Self, which is also handy. If you have Aid Self you won't miss Health at all, and as a flier you don't need hurdle (though Swift is handy to speed up Hover). You can even keep Swift and add Aid Self and Aid Other for the same number of power picks as Stamina costs, assuming you have a free pool. Really the big consideration is slots... if you have three power picks free but no extra slots, go with Stamina since the Fitness powers are good with just the default slot in them. If you can spare a few slots to enhance Aid Self and Aid Other (especially if you can afford one or both uniques) you may prefer that route.

Pain and Storm are both good in groups. Pain helps the group recover from damage, and Storm helps the group avoid getting damaged in the first place... you don't really need much healing when the enemies are knocked on their butts and to-hit debuffed into the middle of next week.

As for the knockback in Bots, it's really not that big a deal. The way I look at it, if my Bots knock something back then that something wasn't an EB or higher... and if if it's not an EB or higher it's going to be dead before anyone can get a complaint typed out so who cares? You do lose a bit of damage on bosses when you knock them out of burn patches, but Hurricane plus a corner solves that problem just fine, as does the Mu patron AoE immobilize. But really, the knockback is rarely an issue in my experience since anything tough enough to not get steamrolled by a team will generally ignore KB.

I can't say much about Storm since I've only played it to low levels, but I do have a 50 Bots/Traps and I can tell you that the lower tier bots are anything but useless. Yes, the Assault Bot is your biggest damage dealer, but the Battle Drones dish out significant damage even at high levels. They have AoE cones after the 2nd upgrade, and they also have decent single target blasts.

The main difference between Bots and Thugs is that Thugs get AoEs a lot sooner and do a bit more damage overall, while Bots are tougher and have less resisted damage but are really pretty slow at lower levels. After 32 both are AoE monsters and both have good defense, so you're looking at something like this:

Bots
- Less resisted damage type
- Healing pets
- Defense buff for the Mastermind
- All ranged pets
- Damage concentrated mostly in near-unkillable Assault Bot

Thugs
- More raw damage
- Can slot Achilles' procs to make up for Lethal damage type
- Can slot both Resist and both Defense aura IOs
- Has a melee pet that can tank
- Damage spread out among all pets, and especially in suicidal Arsonist

I consider Bots more low-maintenance and perfect for Tankerminding, but Thugs are actually better if you want the pets to take the aggro since they all get the full defense from the Enforcers while Protector Bots only get one bubble themselves, and the Bruiser is a great tank.

I was having the same problem staying logged in with Firefox, and disabling Cooliris seems to have fixed it.

EDIT: Spoke too soon. It got better, but the problem still crops up at times.

A few basics:

- Before level 22, you want to focus on accuracy and damage for attacks, and possibly one endurance reduction if you have enough slots. Once you get to 22, you can use Single Origin enhancements... at that point you should slot attacks with one Accuracy, three Damage, one Endurance, and one Recharge. That's a good general purpose slotting to use until you can afford set enhancements or you decide you need a different mix.

- Bolt, Blast, and Burst are your main attacks in Energy. You'll want all three well slotted because you'll use them a lot. Bolt and Blast are especially important since you can use those while held, stunned, or slept. Sniper is nice to lead off with, especially with Aim or Build Up (or both) but is easily skipped if you don't have room.

- Energy Torrent is a very useful attack. It hits several enemies and knocks them flying, which is handy since it keeps them from shooting you for a couple of seconds. However, as a flier you may want to skip it since you can usually avoid getting close enough to need it. It's still handy in tight quarters though.

- Explosive Blast is handy but not particularly powerful. You can skip it and not really miss it, but if you have room you may want it. Aim, Build Up, Energy Torrent, then Explosive Blast can do pretty good damage to a whole spawn, but Aim and Build Up aren't available every spawn so it's up to you if that's worth the power choices to take.

- Speaking of which, take Aim and Build Up. They help a lot.

- You'll want to take Stamina at level 20 if possible. It makes a huge difference. Take Swift (which increases fly speed) and Health before 20 if possible so you'll be able to get Stamina.

I don't know as much about Electric, but I do know Charged Brawl and Havok Punch are fantastic damage powers. They're also melee though, so you may not want both if you are going to try to avoid getting close. On the other hand, you can do phenomenal damage by using Power Blast, Power Burst, Havok Punch, and Charged Brawl as your attacks and staying close to the enemy. It's dangerous though.

Since it's your first character, I'd suggest playing around with as many of the powers from your primary and secondary as possible. Once you decide what you like and what you don't you can use your second build to select only those powers you want. By the time you get into the mid 20s you should be able to afford new enhancements for the second build.

Oh, and be sure to use Wentworth's. Even if you just list every salvage piece you get at 1 influence you'll end up richer than you would be selling them to a vendor. Do sell enhancements to vendors, they don't sell well at WWs... and they sell for more at a vendor that sells that enhancement (a Mutant store pays more for Mutant origin enhancements than a Tech store.) If you take some time to check out prices you can make quite a bit off the market even at low levels, but even if you don't want to fool with that at least sell the salvage. For instance, some recipes are almost worthless and should be vendored, while others can make you millions if you craft them and sell the IO on the market. It takes some research to figure out what's valuable, but it's time well spent.

[ QUOTE ]
Basically, my questions are these:
[list]
* Webnade, slot or not?


[/ QUOTE ]Slot it. You'll use it a lot, especially on bosses or higher. I personally like the Trap of the Hunter set in it for the bonuses, but if you're tight on slots just get some accuracy, endurance, and maybe a bit of immobilize.
[ QUOTE ]

* Toss Triage, or keep it?


[/ QUOTE ]Depends of what you intend to do. Triage is fantastic in AV fights and almost useless in normal soloing (you don't stay still long enough for it to matter). I personally like to be able to flatten EBs and take on a true AV if I want to, so I took it on my Bots/Traps.[ QUOTE ]

* Challenge or Provoke?


[/ QUOTE ]Again, depends on your goals. You don't need either for normal solo spawns, especially if you take Maneuvers and get a 5% pet defense IO... your bots will be almost unkillable to non-EB level foes. If you want to tank for full teams, go with Provoke. If you want to solo AVs and not tank for teams, go with Challenge. If you don't want to solo AVs and don't plan to team, save a pool and skip both. [ QUOTE ]

* Hasten?


[/ QUOTE ]It's useful for AV fights to get more Acid Mortars and Poison traps down and resummon faster if needed, but honestly it's not that necessary.[ QUOTE ]

* Stamina?


[/ QUOTE ]It's useful but easily skipped if you use IOs. With good endurance slotting in all your powers (easy if you frankenslot) it's possible to run Leadership toggles without it. You will need a couple blue pills for AV fights, but anything else dies before you run out of endurance. However, if you plan to use your personal attacks or veteran attacks regularly you do need Stamina... those are all endurance hogs.[ QUOTE ]

* Mu or Mace?


[/ QUOTE ]I like Mu. You can get plenty of Ranged and AoE defense from sets and Charged Armor is handy, plus the -KB AoE immobilize helps maximize your Assault Bot burn patches. If you plan to make a really cheap build (no set bonuses) or like being in melee range to toe bomb, go Mace for the extra S/L Defense in Scorpion Shield.[ QUOTE ]

* Tips/Tricks?

[/ QUOTE ]
I like to use Caltrops and Web Grenade to keep things at range and let the pets keep the aggro for normal spawns. That way I can manually target for best effect and don't need Bodyguard. For EBs, AVs, and certain tough bosses (Succubi, for instance) I alternate Web Grenade and Challenge while in Bodyguard. That keeps the bots from getting fried by a lucky shot. Also, remember that Defensive Stay or Goto is still Bodyguard mode (as long as the bots are in line of sight and within 60 feet)... park the bots on a Triage Beacon out of AoE splash range before immobilizing and taunting an AV. If you position right, the bots will be on one side of the Beacon and you'll be on the far edge, so you all get the regen but the bots stay out of the blast radius.

Get Aid Self and Aid Other and slot both (I recommend five Doctored Wounds). Aid Other is perfect for topping off pets (given a choice, take it instead of Repair because it's a lot more useful) and Aid Self plus Bodyguard and high personal defense makes you pretty much immortal.

Be sure to get plenty of recharge and an Achilles' Heel proc in Acid Mortar.

Don't worry if you're broke and using a cheap build. Using generic IOs or SOs just affects which AVs a Bots/Traps can solo and how long it takes to do so... it doesn't mean you aren't still death incarnate.

And finally, don't get discouraged in the 20s when you get stomped flat by Scrapyarders. it gets better. A lot better. And don't forget to go back when you're 50 and spend a few minutes mowing down every Demolitionist you see. It feels really, really good...

The problem with ghost pirates is that every time you get a good evil scheme going, four meddling kids and a dog show up and foil it.

The Achilles' proc doesn't stack from the same player, so it's not going to be that good. Nice, but hardly overpowered. I'm sure they will change Neutrino Bolt a bit, but they may leave it at around a 2 second recharge. That would give the tier 1 and 2 attacks similar recharge to Fire Blast. I'd personally like 3 seconds and 6 seconds even better for Neutrino and X-Ray... that's still plenty spammable with even normal SO enhancements and it would mean a significant damage boost per attack. The DPA on Neutrino Bolt as it is now would be pretty lousy compared to other Blaster tier one attacks...

[ QUOTE ]
Integration+IH pre-ED was literally insane.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah the good old days when you could permanently have enough regen to go from 1 HP to full in a tad over 12 seconds. Back then a /Regen was either dead or immortal... if you survived the first 10 seconds of a fight you knew you could put your PBAoE on auto and go fix a sandwich if you wanted to.

The key to high DPS is to use high Damage Per Activation powers. Divide the damage by the activation time, and use the ones that come out on top. It doesn't matter how long or short the actual activation is (within reason... you do want some mobility), only how much damage per second of activation time.

For Martial Arts, your best DPA attacks (starting at the top) are: Storm Kick, Crane Kick, Eagles Claw, and Crippling Axe Kick. You want to use those as much as possible, ideally only those. Since Crane Kick has knockback rather than knockdown, you'll also want to skip using it unless the target is against a wall or has -KB applied... you'll lose too much DPS chasing things around. And of course you're limited by recharge... for instance, you can't do Storm -> Eagle -> Storm -> Crippling -> (repeat) unless you have 225% recharge in Storm Kick, because you can't get Storm Kick to recharge fully during Crippling Axe Kick's (or Crane Kick's) animation. That's possible but expensive... a more realistic chain for leveling up would be Storm -> Eagle -> Storm -> Crippling -> (other), with (other) being either Crane Kick (if KB isn't a problem), Dragon's Tail (if multiple mobs are in melee range), Cobra Strike (if you need mitigation), or Thunder Kick (if none of the others apply).

Note that the real activation times of powers are not what is listed in game or in Mids'... look up "Arcanatime" in the forums if you want the details, but in general due to how the server processes attacks there's a small delay added. That means you'll want to look up the real activation times if you want to plan out enough recharge for a specific chain. Or calculate them yourself... the formula is (thanks Arcanaville... you're the only one obsessive enough to calculate something like this ):

Real activation time = (RoundUp(Listed time / 0.132) + 1) * 0.132

Also, PvP is totally different. Powers have different damage values in PvP, and the focus is not on attack chains but rather burst damage. In PvP, you're pretty much going to be using Eagles Claw, Crane Kick, and Crippling Axe Kick and ignoring the rest unless you somehow get into a stand up fight instead of a hit and run match.

[ QUOTE ]
SK - CK - SK - CAK is the best MA DPS chain as far as I know. EC shouldn't be used at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Eagle Claw has a slightly higher DPA than CAK, and it is easier to get enough recharge to use it. It also crits more often and has a mag 3 stun. Why not use it?

[ QUOTE ]
What are the rules for that ?

inspirations and buffs legal ? Temps ?

I wouldnt think damage insps would be kosher but what about survival insps ?

Temps wouldnt seem legit but base buffs should be.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say a fair test for Blasters would be to allow temps and inspirations that don't affect damage. A good Scrapper build can ignore Pylon damage indefinitely, but most Blasters will either faceplant or have to frequently use Aid Self. A mix of set bonuses and Lucks plus the occasional green pill should let a Blaster simulate a Scrapper's superior mitigation, allowing a straight up damage comparison.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


Pain Domination is entirely based on mental control. You don't actually 'heal' anyone, you just make them ignore any pain they might be feeling.

Kind of like how someone hopped up on PcP can demonstrate feats of 'invulnerability'.

Which is why it's a villainous powerset.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does that make the medics on the sidelines at Football games villains? They give the players a hefty cortisone shot after they get injured and then send them right back onto the field.

[/ QUOTE ]

Considering how much trouble those athletes tend to have later on thanks to all the old injuries, yes... it does.

Thugs are very good, and are probably the best "generalist" set, especially leveling up. But that doesn't make them the best for all occasions. Some advantages the others have:

Bots: The toughest pets to kill, since they get high defense, innate resists, and good healing (the Protector Bots alone can often keep the team going without heals from the MM). They also offer the Mastermind a nice bit of defense, which is perfect for Tankerminds. And after 32 they do almost as much damage as Thugs, with good AoEs, and a less resisted damage type. All from range, with no melee Bruiser running out of aura range or requiring Goto commands to make him stop tossing rocks.

Dark: Insane controls, all the pets can self heal, lots of to-hit penalties. If you want a control-focused Mastermind, these are the guys to use. They also have a fair bit of Negative damage, which is less resisted.

Ninjas: Want to kill a tough single target really fast? Call in the ninjas... assuming you can keep them alive. My least favorite primary, but you can't beat them for single target damage.

Mercs: All ranged, all can slot Achilles' Heel procs, and they work very well with true "Natural" theme characters that aren't gangsters. They do have a fair bit of control when you get lucky enough for them to use it effectively (all too rare), but really Bots are all around better if you want pure ranged minions. Still, concept is important too and they don't stink, they're just not quite as strong as the others.