Talionis

I noticed that the warriors have crossbows. Why can't we? I would think that it would be a reasonable weapon look to use.

I know its not just putting the crossbow over the other animation, but the animations exist. So it seems like it would be easy to do.

I guess Ninja Masterminds might also want crossbows.

I mean Huntress uses a crossbow. Green Arrow sometimes uses a crossbow. Buffy the Vampire Slayer uses crossbows. I'm sure other superheroes have used crossbows instead of bows.

Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to do.

That sorta my point. Tanks are usually very tight builds and Dual Blades can be tight as well since you may want to get many of the combos.

Since Tanks are the only Archetype forced to pick Nimble Slash as a first pick, you would think more thought would've gone into it. I think either Ablating Strike or Blinding Feint would be better at first tier and allow more flexibility for late toons to pick just the combos it wants.

Whatever the first power is in a Secondary, that Archetype will have to take that first power. I would like for them to reorder the Tanker Dual Blade Secondary Tier one in order to give us more options on which combos to take by moving Nimble Slash down in order and either moving up Ablating Strike or Blinding Feint.

The problem is that to get the two best combos, SWEEP and ATTACK VITALS you need to take 7 powers. Its 8 powers in order to get EMPOWER like you suggest.

In order to allow us more choices it would make sense to put Ablating Strike in the first position. Ablating Strike is used the most by the combos, 3 of 4.

Nimble Slash is only used in two combos.

Even Blinding Feint would be nicer in the first slot than Nimble Slash. Even though its only in one combo itself. The effect of added to hit and damage is nice for the fast activation time set and a set so focused on Accuracy to make three attacks hit in a row.

To answer your question. No it is not bad for a Tank. The problem with Cloak of Darkness is not that it will hurt your ability to Taunt. I have run it on my Dark/Stone and it doesn't hurt aggro management at all.

The problem with CoD is:

1. CoD takes up a Power Slot
2. CoD is only ~7.9% defense fully slotted. If it were ~15% defense it might be more worth it
3. In order to get to the soft cap you'll probably also take Cloak of Fear for the fully slotted - 7.92% to Hit.
4. That takes another power slot
5. Both powers take slots
6. Both those powers are toggles that drain endurance
7. Cloak of Fear only affects melee range targets
8. With both those powers, you still only have ~16% defense. That leave ~29% defense to be made up by IO's (can you say expensive) and Weave and other Pool Powers.

Defense is exponentially good. The closer to 45% you get, the benefit is much better. Having less than 20% is barely noticeable. 30% is decent. So a little Defense doesn't go a long way. Not to mention a lot of the high level mobs do have -Defense abilities that can quickly floor whatever defense you did put together.

Most people take CoD in order to get some defense, the stealth function would be gravy or thematic for them. I don't blame them for trying, but it doesn't really work because it doesn't provide enough defense itself. You end up burning a lot of endurance, power choices, and slots in something that is not your first, or second layer of defense.

Dark is a smorgasborg set. A little control. A little resistance. A big heal with a thirsty endurance usage. A little Defense. A little Defense, just doesn't go a long way.

I have a Ice/Dual Blades Tanker and it seems like its just not doing what I need. I know the combo is tight because both Cold and Dual Blades beg for a lot of power selections from primary and secondary. I'm starting to wish Nimble Blade was not the tier 1, I must select it power for Tanks. We are already tight enough almost having to take most of our Primary and the Fighting Pool to make us tough. Why saddle us with a useless power for our Tier 1? The two best combo's Sweeping Combo and Attack Vitals have no overlap, so that is six powers you are forced to take if you want both, seven since you have to take Nimble Blade as the Tier 1.

I'm wondering if other Tanks are liking Dual Blades.

The skippable attacks in Dual Blades seem to be:

Nimble Blade -- Even though we can't skip it because we are a Tank and its the first choice, I see it as skippable. Both Weaken and Empower are not considered good combo's late in the game. I would probably skip or respec out of it if I could.

Power Slice -- If you don't want the sweeping combo. I think I want the Sweeping Combo for the mitigation, but wow is it making me take a lot of powers since there is no over lap with Attack Vitals.

Ablating Strike & Vengeful Slice -- You could skip them, but then you wouldn't have Attack Vitals. Plus both attacks are good on their own right. I think I want both Attack Vitals and Sweeping Combo, but we'll have to see.

Blinding Feint -- Initially this is one of the reasons I took Dual Blades. I wanted a little more accuracy in my build and the little damage buff. I like these better than build ups. However, being as tight as this build is? As much as I focus on getting good accuracy already outside this power not too miss my combos. As little extra damage as this provides, and as bad as Empower seems to be. I think I may drop this.

Taunt -- I don't think I can take it. The build is too tight. With Cold at least I have two taunt auras.

Typhoon's Edge, Sweeping Strike, and One-Thousand Cuts -- I am keeping them to get as much AoE damage as possible. But they also are all needed for Sweeping Combo and Attack Vitals. I think One-Thousand Cuts is the most skippable, which is sad since its the tier nine. But I've heard the damage to activation time is not good. Still it's needed for the Sweeping Combo.

I was wondering if anyone has ever used the Fear from the Power Pools? I was curious if it had a cool interaction or could be used in any good way in any build?

Someone said they didn't like Increase Density. I have to say you really don't know the up side of Increase Density.

First off its Clarity, or the Sonice version that can wake a mezed teamate. I'm not a fan of that power and if it only did that I probably wouldn't take it.

Second it grants really good resistances. With the current focus on defense many builds don't have maxed resistances and so added resistance can be very helpful to throw on a tank.

Third the slow is a nifty griefer power. But you have an antidote to it in Speed Boost.

Yes, you couldn't keep it on more than one or two toons very well. But its good to have to do the hard stuff. And in a pinch you can keep it on a toon or two. Its allowed me to get through stuff on small teams we probably shouldn't be able to.

The power is so good it just couldn't last any longer. But it does so many things well and lets you get through hard content. I usually keep it on my kins.

It is definately an optional power, but I think its better than Clarity and most Emps take that.

I was thinking of rolling one of these up during 2XP weekend and wanted to know if any new ideas or thinking had come of it.

What was the best powersets to do it?

Is there a list of powers for Dual Pistols yet anywhere? What is DP good at?

People wanted purdy so bad they were playing turdy Petless Masterminds to get Dual Pistols. All it needs to be is purdy.

I went to the Annoucement page. Basically, Dual Pistols and Demon Summoning are available early, in a "booster pack", but most of Going Rogue isn't coming out for a while.

Wow, I'm not surprised I'm confused. The options were not the most logical things I've ever seen. It looks like everyone is befuddled.

I personally thought there would be more content in Going Rogue. I was hoping for an archetype that was Buff & Debuff/Melee. Oh well. I'm not sure that a few new missions and being able to change sides is really enough for an expansion. I was hoping for new Archetypes.

I have always thought that this looked like a great combonation. Fire has good damage and decent control. Sonic brings a lot of greatly improved resists, lowering enemy resists, and mez protection. Since everyone is trying to soft cap defense anyway, most toons don't need help with Defense, but extra resistance almost everyone can use.

I've heard that both sets are very Endurance intensive and that has always scared me. Should it?

Would Consume help once you got there?

Medicine, anything not technical.

Shadow Maul and Siphon Life, how about a bite animation

Psychic Melee, punching animations

Dual Blades , Dual police batons

Storm/Electric Defender
Function -- Sapper & Thunder God

Here is the guide: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=117680. They are pretty rare. Hard to use, but very effective when used correctly. He has more punch than you'd expect and the pseudo pets do great things in PvP.

The guide is old. I'd suggest getting Tesla Cage (for the - recovery, not the hold) and Steamy Mist to up your Defense. With IO's it is much easier to manage your Endurance than when the guide was originally written.

Reasons for it

1. Almost no toons have Endurance Drain resists, but many run a lot of toggles and can have endurance issues.
2. Pets are both good damage and do something if you get held
3. For toons you can stack stuns on, this build can stun them quickly
4. You can get yourself soft capped ranged defense easily between Steamy Mist and Hurricane's debuff and knockback.
5. You can really hamper opponents movement with Snowstorm, Freezing Rain, Gail, and Hurricane. Try to put them in a corner if you can, they often won't get out.
6. Sometimes it is nice of a toon to have a theme and be good. This guy does it.
7. You have to manage a lot of different powers, turning on and off Hurricane, setting up Short Circuit without killing yourself, finding walls to trap opponents to maximize your pets.

I submit, its not impossible to balance freeform RPGs, its just so close to impossible its not worth the effort. Even pen and paper games arent balanced. D&D, the ones that have been doing it forever dont hqve it balanced. Many builds for players are much stronger than others. In D&D they assume the DM will balance the party using his judgement.

In this thread alone we have strong examples of min/maxed builds that would be able to blow firekins controlers at farming and rad/sonic defenders on defeating AVs.

I still think the best thing to do would be to allow people special quests at high levels to add one or two powers from any set in the game. This is dangerous in itself and may require some powers, like fulcrem shift, to be unavailabe. But, I think it would go a long way to adding more individuality to each toon. I also think it would allow people to make some of the concept toons they have been wanting to make. I think it gives just enough protection from rampant abuse.

Would the already rich get richer? Yes, Firekins would get a little stronger, but other builds might get closer to catching up.

My main is supposed to be a SS/Kinetic or Kinetic/SS. Didn't matter. But it sadly is not an option.

I've tried:

Cold/Kin Controller
Kin/Electric Defender
Kin/Rad Defender
Kin/Dark Defender (although I didn't try this for too long and maybe I should now that we have color customization)
Sonic/Energy Blaster -- Fun but a little boring. I usually had enough control for normal solo situations. Almost too much control. And with little AoE, this wasn't that fun on teams.

Biggest problem is that I can't get any mez protection on a Kinetic. Melee without mez protection = not fun for me.

In other games, I've used to playing "paladin" like characters that buff and debuff from melee range. Sadly this game doesn't really have an analog.

I don't see how different a scythe is from a pole (except for it using smashing damage instead of lethal damage). Many comic heroes use pole fighting, (ex. Teen Titan Robin). The game already has two handed weapons in claws and double blades that cannot use shields. So the game can be taught not to allow combonations that have odd animations. Then all you need is animations for poles. At which point a lot of people might be happy with skins for the poles that included a scythe. All of that sounds doable.

Seems like Electric can eat a blue then Power Sink and come back from the Crash, but I was wondering what advantage if any you get from it?

I will agree with this. One of the Archetypes that you see 100,000,000 of on Champions Online is the Deadpool wantabees. When something is popular it is best to give it to the paying consumers so they don't go get it somewhere else.

The sets don't have to be too good or anything, but none of these sets break the game or the Blaster Archetype.

Dual Blades,
Katana, and
Martial Arts should all be ported.

Lord knows a lot of people want to make GunFu builds. Its a popular thing in Anime. It also was fun with the whole Gun Katta thing from Equilibrium.

I agree they would not be total melee sets, but it would be interesting so see:

Quickness
Focused Accuracy
Willpowers Endurance gaining power ported into them in varied ways. I'm sure some other interesting things could be done.

I think Caltrops might be appropriate in more than one set. Lord knows, build up is in almost have the sets in the game.