The_Spad_EU

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It would be doubtful that would happen if you used nrg ab first. max as a question do u have a high lvl ice tank? because if u did u'd know that happens only extreme cases or at least it does for me

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I've got 2 and while it is fairly rare, it does happen. If you've got 4 or 5 +3/+4 Freak Tanks around you, hitting for ~500HP worth of damage then if 3 of them get lucky in the space of a few seconds, you're dead. Even with the worlds greatest reflexes you tend to find that Hoarfrost hasn't finished activating by the time you're on the ground.

Yes, you can pre-emptively use Hoarfrost or pop orange insps, but not for every group of mobs - at least not practically.

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Not if hf and hibernate were properly recharged. Ive never been so unlucky to be carrying more than a couple oranges tho even in longer mishs.

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It's rather tricky to user Hibernate pre-emptively.

Getting 2/3 shotted means you don't have time for Orange Insps - otherwise you'd just hit Hoarfrost.

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They Squishy hype is from the days before scaling defence.

Nowadays they are pretty resiliant - and are the best aggro grabbers in the game with chilling embrace. Once you have CE you cant play any other tank!

Funilly enough, the "String of bad luck will kill you" argument against defence actually matters the least to tanks - they have such high hit points it has to be a very very long string of bad luck to actually fell you. Im far more worried about defence / string of bad luck on my stalker for instance, where a couple of hard hits will knock them over instantly.

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It's fairly easy to get 2/3 shotted by say, Freak Tanks or Crey Tanks, if you get a run of bad luck.

All in all, Ice Armour is probably the most survivable of the tanker primaries these days. The horrible squishiness of the past is thankfully long gone now.

Of course, every now and then you're going to get 2/3-shotted, but that's simply the risk you take with DEF based sets. For every time it happens, you'll have numerous occasions in which you'll have outsurvived even your wildest expectations, however.

Not to mention, of course, that Chilling Embrace will benefit your whole team as it reduces both damage and attack rate of any affected mobs.

I get this all the time when I'm doing my weekly TANC hero team, but then that's to be expected

It's a constant competition between me as the tank, trying to grab all the aggro, Wilf and Laustin as the blasters, trying to get themselves killed and Target as our canary, doing the regen scrapper thing.

Ultimately, in that sort of team environment, it really doesn't matter. I'm a good enough tank to keep most of the aggro and Wilf has enough awakens to last the night. On a lesser team, however, it can really stretch your abilities trying to keep aggro when people are all running around doing their own thing, but then it's not really fair to expect them to hang around and wait for you to herd everything nicely back to them.

Personally, I ask nicely for people to wait until I've coralled the mobs around me so that I can fire off Energy Absorption before they wade in with the Immobs. I don't spend ages herding, I just make sure I get all the mobs with Chilling Embrace and trying to get them all into melee range.

Following on from http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/sh...;Number=722938

I took it upon myself to colour in the other sketch that Jamie Simms did for me thusly: http://img85.imageshack.us/my.php?im...urspad2dl3.jpg

For some reason I'm not as happy with this one as the first, but I can't put my finger on why yet.

Phase 2 - with much better colouring:

http://img65.imageshack.us/my.php?im...urspad1eb4.jpg

It's getting there.

As per here: http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/sh...;Number=722806

I thought I'd try some colouring in. I'm not exactly what you'd call talented when it comes to art, but I can use Photoshop, so it was worth a shot.

It's not quite finished and I'd like to add some after effects, but my hand is getting tired so I'll have to revisit it another day.

Comments and abuse welcome:

http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?i...urspad1qn4.jpg

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Seeds! Quickly! Before it gets nerfed!

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I'd much rather see Mass Confusion buffed.

EA caps at 10 mobs.

The optimal slotting is usually 3 Recharge / 3 Defence, at least for PvE, which will let you double-stack it with Hasten.

4 or 5 mobs will get you virtually a full end bar without any End Mods slotted.

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A tank focused on attacking seems to me as useful to a team as a blaster focused on healing. Sure it's a nice bonus, but not the way to take the best of the AT imo

[/ QUOTE ]Blasters don't have a secondary with 8 healing powers though.

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Ok, then as an empath focused on blasting

[/ QUOTE ]A good empath in a good team only needs to apply fort, AB and RA's when they're up, as well as few heals and CM's here and there, there's a lot free time there which can be used to focus on blasting

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That depends on the level of the mission as well. A con red mish will need more healing than a con blue.

[/ QUOTE ]A good team won't be doing a red conning mish

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Are you trying to imply that a good team should be doing a white conning mish or that they should be fighting +5s?

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I knew there was a reason I kept from posting.... I cant believe how far people are willing to go just to say they've been here longer, which doesnt necessarily mean that they know more......

I think ill go back to enjoying the game and steer clear from areas such as this. I cant believe what Im reading.

.....Thanks for all the fish!! They definately knew better :-)

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Why dont you do better than that and come out with numbers, talk game dynamics, come up with something?

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Numbers/statistics are better than playing and enjoying the game as is?

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No, but the Devs' paradoxical game design means that it's very easy to make a complete [censored] of a character that is so unplayable that it's no fun at all to level. They won't provide any hard figures - or even accurate power descriptions and consistant damage "amounts" - but do things like ED that make it all too simple for uninformed players to do horribly wasteful things (both in terms of slots and inf) like 6-slotting powers for the same thing.

Ultimately, if you're having fun and your team is having fun that the numbers don't matter and neither does your playstyle. However, there comes a point where both of those *do* make a difference - when you start getting your team killed because you're playing your character in a reckless manner or your contribution to the team is non-existant because of a dreadful build.

Personally, I play my tanks as aggressive meat-shields. I will attack for as long as I can afford the endurance cost and on the condition that it's not causing me to lose track of aggro - the last thing you want to do as a tank is for your actions to get the whole team killed, especially if it's because you were too busy beating on that Boss to notice that you'd lost the attention of the other mobs.

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I agree that a tank standing there taking the agro and not REALLY pulling his wight is leaching. As a team without a tank can still take mobs. Maybe not as easy but still win.

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How about a defender that's just standing there buffing?
Or a controller who's just standing there holding?
Or a blaster who's just standing there attacking?

After all, teams can still take mobs without them. Maybe not as easy, but still win.

Here's Spad's build - obviously I've taken the Pyre Mastery pool, but

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Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder - (http://sherksilver.coldfront.net/index.php)
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Name: Spad
Level: 50
Archetype: Tanker
Primary: Ice Armor
Secondary: Fiery Melee
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01) --> Frozen Armor==> EndRdx(1) EndRdx(3) DefBuf(3) DefBuf(19) DefBuf(19)
01) --> Scorch==> EndRdx(1) Acc(5) Rechg(5) Dmg(7) Dmg(17) Dmg(21)
02) --> Hoarfrost==> Rechg(2) Rechg(7) Rechg(9) Heal(9) Heal(11) Heal(11)
04) --> Combustion==> EndRdx(4) Acc(13) Rechg(13) Dmg(15) Dmg(15) Dmg(17)
06) --> Wet Ice==> EndRdx(6)
08) --> Combat Jumping==> EndRdx(8)
10) --> Taunt==> Rechg(10)
12) --> Chilling Embrace==> EndRdx(12) Slow(46)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Hurdle==> Jump(16)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18) Heal(21) Heal(23)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20) EndMod(25) EndMod(27)
22) --> Glacial Armor==> EndRdx(22) EndRdx(23) DefBuf(25) DefBuf(27) DefBuf(29)
24) --> Hasten==> Rechg(24) Rechg(33) Rechg(34)
26) --> Icicles==> EndRdx(26) Acc(33) Dmg(33) Dmg(34) Dmg(36)
28) --> Energy Absorbtion==> DefBuf(28) DefBuf(29) DefBuf(31) Rechg(31) Rechg(36) Rechg(36)
30) --> Fire Sword Circle==> EndRdx(30) Acc(31) Rechg(34) Dmg(37) Dmg(37) Dmg(37)
32) --> Boxing==> Acc(32)
35) --> Incinerate==> EndRdx(35) Acc(39) Rechg(39) Dmg(42) Dmg(43) Dmg(43)
38) --> Greater Fire Sword==> EndRdx(38) Acc(39) Rechg(40) Dmg(40) Dmg(40) Dmg(42)
41) --> Tough==> EndRdx(41) DmgRes(42) DmgRes(43) DmgRes(45)
44) --> Char==> EndRdx(44) Acc(45) Hold(45) Hold(46) Hold(46)
47) --> Fire Blast==> EndRdx(47) Acc(48) Dmg(48) Dmg(48)
49) --> Fire Ball==> EndRdx(49) Acc(50) Dmg(50) Dmg(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Run(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Acc(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
01) --> Gauntlet==> Empty(1)
01) --> Power Slide==> Empty(1)
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Primary weakness being that in PvP he only has one single-target attack until Lv35. PvE-wise though it's great team-oriented build.

There's no point in slotting Combat Jumping for Defence, the amount you get from it is negligible.

Energy Absorption should really be slotted 3xrecharge, 3xdefence

What level are you?

The tanker ethos is basically "First In, Last Out, Go down with the ship"

That is to say, your primary role is not to take damage per se, but to stop the rest of your team from doing so. If it all goes pear-shaped, you're the one who should be trying to buy you team mates time to escape, though it often means accumulating debt yourself.

The Taunt debate is endless and I've been randomly flamed several times for saying that I think having taunt makes it possible for you to be a better tanker than not having it. Note that I didn't say that having taunt *makes* you a better tanker.

The art of tanking, aside from holding the aggro, is judging whether or not you *can* simply jump into a group. You have to know your strengths & weaknesses and exactly what damage and effects you're going to get from any given group of mobs. Knowing this literally means the difference between success and instant death.

Oh and Shannon, I Disagree!...Actually, I don't. Ice got its buffs at just the right time, when everyone else was getting nerfed into the ground. Enjoy it while you can, I doubt it'll last

Yes and No.

It's bad because 50% of its effect is worthless (The Cold RES) as you already have 90% RES from your 3 armours.

Of course, this is all a remnant of back when you could only run one armour at a time, same as Temperature Protection - but that's no excuse for not updating it.

The Fire RES is handy (almost 25% 3-slotted), especially since Wet Ice got nerfed down to almost nothing (It used to provide 12% Fire DEF) so your only real Fire DEF now comes from Energy Absorption.

Problem is, I can never justify the power choice and I can certainly never justify spending any slots on it.

In other words, if you've got a spare power choice, it's handy to have in some situations, but don't waste any slots on it.

I can't handle CoT demon lords on their own, let alone in groups. Stupid negative resistances and accuracy debuffs.

You really don't need End Reduction enhancements in Dark Consumption - the difference one SO would make is something in the region of 0.3 endurance.

End Mod or End Red? The cost to activate the power is less than 1 END so you should never be in a situation where you can't use it.

As for end mod, 2 minions will almost completely refill your end bar unlsotted.

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does adding recharge speed enhancements to hasten reduce the time it takes to recharge, or the time it takes your powers to recharge while hasten is active? or both?

and am i right in thinking that hasten doesn't start to recharge until the effect wears off?

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Recharge enhancements don't affect the bonus that Hasten grants (Fixed at ~66%), just the time it takes to recharge. Hasten does affect itself (i.e. It recharges 66% faster while it's still running.

Being a clicky, Hasten starts recharging immediately after activating it.

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I've respec'd out hibernate and I don't use/need it, I'd get more use out of permafrost!

Spad, do you really need 2 endreds in FA? I thought it was pretty low end usage anyway.

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It's a rarity, but I actually had spare slots to spend, hence the extra endreds.

I've still never used Hibernate in a combat situation more than 5 times in the whole time I've been playing.

The slot levels are all the usual randomness that results from using planners.