The_Spad_EU

My I6 Ice Armour Guide is still pretty much accurate: http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/sh...;Number=249898

Spad's current build is as follows, however, being a Lv50 build there are a lot of powers that are out of order from the perspective of a new player - but then really, without dropping either the leaping pool or speed pool entirely, I'm not sure how else I can fit things in earlier:

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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==> DefBuf(8)
10) --> Chilling Embrace==> EndRdx(10) Slow(48) Taunt(48)
12) --> Taunt==> Rechg(12) Taunt(50)
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) EndRdx(33) Acc(33) Dmg(34) Dmg(36) Dmg(40)
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) --> Stimulant==> IntRdx(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(42) Dmg(42)
41) --> Aid Self==> EndRdx(41) IntRdx(43) IntRdx(46) Heal(46) Heal(48) Heal(50)
44) --> Char==> EndRdx(44) Acc(45) Hold(45) Hold(45) Hold(46)
47) --> Super Speed==> EndRdx(47)
49) --> Hibernate==> Rechg(49) Rechg(50)
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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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Oh, and I have plenty of attacks too - or at least will do, but they're almost all post-26 as it's important to have your survival essentials in place before you start worrying about attacks.

Scathing.

Tanks *were* better in I3/I4,
It's quite possible to tank now, albeit not as easy as in I3
Tanks aren't balanced, intra-AT, but are much better than they used to be
I have a great deal of fun playing my pure tank in a team

Yes, taunt auras are pretty much essential, but you can often put them off for a few levels without affecting your survivability too much - at least at lower levels (And Blazing Aura is as low as they get). I won't get into the Taunt/No Taunt argument, but while a good tank can manage without Taunt, a better tank has it for when it's needed.

I don't have my fire tank build any more, but there are 4 things common to all "proper" tanks (i.e. Those who plan to Tank, not Scrank) that are required ASAP, without exception.

Shields
Mez Protection
Taunt
Self-Heal

Anything else is a secondary concern.

You need to take Plasma Shield as soon as its available. No Energy/Negative resists will kill you extremely fast, especially later in the game.

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a fire tank without fiery embrace is a huge waste especially with energy secondary

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I thought it only affected fire attacks..?



Nanomancer

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I common misconception and one that I was afflicted by for a while - probably due to poor or old power descriptions, these things usually are.

Extra slots can go into Health and putting some end reductions in your big attacks.

ROTP only really needs a single Recharge. If you've got spare slots you can add some heals, but it's not of major importance.

I'll second you really, really needing Healing Flames - the difference in survivability with and without it is huge.

You only need ACCs in Taunt if you're going to be doing PvP.

Take boxing instead of kick - you'll rarely use either, but boxing is faster and cheaper to use.

3-slot Health, you'll notice it as a Tanker.

Only need one "End Red" in Fire Shield and one or two in Tough. You don't need 3 end reds in Weave or Focused Acc either and you'll only want 1 in Acrobatics.

6-slotting ROTP suggests that you're planning to die. Slotting it with recharges suggests that you're planning to die a lot. Neither is recommended.

Outside of Overload you will end up with approximately:

Smashing - 26.0%
Lethal - 26.0%
Energy - 35.4%
Negative - 22.4%
Fire - 29.5%
Cold - 29.5%
Toxic - 0%
Psi - 0%

Plus anything else you garner from the power pools.

My DM/EA is extremely end-hungry. My attacks and armours are slotted for end redux and I have Dark Consumption, Energy Drain *and* Conserve Power and I still struggle for end sometimes when CP is down. Such is the price of never having any downtime.

That said, with DC, ED & CP I've been able to skip the fitness pool entirely and very rarely find myself with real End problems unless I'm up against heavy end drain (Like carnies).

I tend not to give advice, initially because there were no other Ice tanks around and now because they're all FOTM PvP builds and I don't really enjoy getting flamed for making suggestions, which is invariably what happens.

On this specific instance, I've had lots of experience with tanks - primary sub-25 - who refuse to run toggles because "They use too much end". At the early levels, this is true if you try and scrank because you simply don't have the endurance to fight *and* run your toggles. A lot of people don't like proper tanking - they make a tank because of the Hulk / Superman image of it without realising the job it does in the game.

Personally, I like proper tanking - as my regular Thursday night team will attest (and probably make snide remarks about my liking debt as well ). The first in, last out, going down with the ship kind of approach is something I enjoy. Outside of soloing, I very rarely scrank until I know that I can manage it without issue.

That said, if people ask my advice, I'm always happy to give it. I won't tell people they have to/would be stupid to take powers, but I will try and impress upon them the strength of feeling behind my opinion

You misunderstand me. I appreciate that it's a lot of work to create a new AT from scratch. I also appreciate that they want something that's not just another PB/WS combo. However, making what will amount to cosmetic changes to the PB/WS ATs and sticking them into Villains as "new" ATs requiring a fair bit of stretching of the ole Kheldian lore just seems a bit lazy. I'd have rather they just stuck PB/WS into Villains - as I've said, there's nothing to stop them being bonded to evil hosts without being any different power-wise to "good" Kheldians.

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I don't think Arakhn is a Nictus

[/ QUOTE ]I'm pretty sure she is, actually.

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Same here.

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I stand corrected, having looked it up again.

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Moreover, there's nothing to stop an evil-minded Warshade (Or Peacebringer) from bonding with a willing host who happens to be evil and doing evil things. They're still a Warshade/Peacebringer but go around hunting heroes for whatever reason (Money, Vengeance, Kicks, etc).

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While this is exactly my point concerning Peacebringers I think I have to disagree with your view of Warshades.
It is not the fact of having a voluntary host that separates Nicti from Warshades. Both of them can do that (since they are biologically identical), only that the Warshade chooses to do so, because he feels that he should not force himself upon an unwilling target. Nicti on the other hand prefer the easy but cruel way that enables them to stay alone in the "driver seat" so that they don´t have to deal with inconveniences like a conscience coming with a new host.
So, an evil Warshade is a Nictus in my book, regardless of him having an unwilling or a voluntary but evil host (although he would likely break his hosts will anyway, given the chance). Warshades are not a race for themselves. They are Nicti in all things except mindset. So the description "Warshade" is just a way to say on which side you are on. (The good guys.)
It´s like saying "I´m a policeman" or "Let me through. I´m a doctor."
And considering this hordes of Warshades running around beating up heroes would not make much sense. It´s by far more probable and plausible that these villains are Nicti.

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But there's evil and Evil. Villains aren't really Evil, they're just bad. Sure they're involved in kidnapping, extortion, beating down heroes, etc. but it's rare to see any of them plotting to wipe out the human race á la Hamidon or the Nictus.

As I've said before, CoV is really City of Moral Ambiguity. Although there's more evil stuff in the game since I7, it's still rare that you actually feel like you're being evil. Certainly I think that there's room within the framework for a Warshade who, say, wants to leave peacefully with humans and with a willing host but also wants to make a bit of cash out of it by running a protection racket.

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So, that´s two Warshade NPCs against one Nictus NPC. That´s hardly something to base statistics on.
So I would go with cold logic and say that the Dark Novas and Black Dwarfs heroes get to fight are Nicti rather than Warshades with a mental lapse. ("Whoops! You are heroes? Sorry, thought you were with the council.")

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There are several others who are named in various arcs, but I can't think of them offhand. Moreover, there's nothing to stop an evil-minded Warshade (Or Peacebringer) from bonding with a willing host who happens to be evil and doing evil things. They're still a Warshade/Peacebringer but go around hunting heroes for whatever reason (Money, Vengeance, Kicks, etc).

I don't think Arakhn is a Nictus, she's just experimented with Nictus fragments á la Galaxy soldiers.

As for NPC Warshades, there's Shadowstar & Shadowcatcher just from the Kheldian story arcs.

On a side note, I don't think people really appreciate just how evil the Nictus are. This isn't a Lord Recluse style lust for power situation, it's a Turning Earth in to a new Nictus homeworld and keeping humans captive to feed off of. Hardly something that would be wished for by either Heroes or Villains outside of Arakn's inner circle.

Because bound Nictus are very rare in CoX - the only one mentioned that I can think of is Requiem.

It still doesn't sit right with me - it's too much of a shoehorning them into CoV because they wanted something different to CoH but at the same time couldn't be bothered to come up with something genuinely new.

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Point being that regardless of the above, the Bright Nova/Dwarf is still just a peacebringer, however evil, rather than anything with special new powers suitable for an epic AT that isn't just a cheap knockoff of the one from CoH.

[/ QUOTE ]But since kheldians have access to a very wide array of abilities, it might just be that the playable villain characters will have some powers the playable hero characters don't, and vice versa. Kinda like fire melee brutes having cremate and tanks combustion, even though thematically they could use both.

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True, but Fire-based powers don't have a fairly extensive game lore behind them to restrict what different powersets can and can't contain, Kheldians do. You've basically only got three options, Peacebringer, Warshade, Nictus.

A Peacebringer can be good or evil but will always be a Peacebringer unless it becomes a Nictus.

A Warshade, being a reformed Nictus, is overwhelmingly likely to be good, but could technically be evil without reverting to being a Nictus, I suppose.

A Nictus, by definition, must be evil, as a good Nictus is a Warshade.

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I was under the impression that a nictus could use either dark or bright nova/dwarf at will, as could a kheldian...Is that incorrect?

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It's somewhat ambigious. The bright/dark nova are identical apart from their colouring and I think the dwarves are too (I've never seen them use Mire or Essence Drain anyway). So whether or not they can actually take both forms doesn't really seem to make a difference. One would assume that logically Peacebringers take on the Bright forms and Warshades the Dark form.

Point being that regardless of the above, the Bright Nova/Dwarf is still just a peacebringer, however evil, rather than anything with special new powers suitable for an epic AT that isn't just a cheap knockoff of the one from CoH. Equally, while the Dark Nova/Dwarf could be either a Nictus or a Warshade (Although the latter is considerably more likely), the same applies.

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An "evil" Peacebringer would be what, exactly?

[/ QUOTE ]Personally, I'd be guessing there will be 'light nictus' and 'dark nictus', since nictus can use both 'dark' and 'light' energy powers...

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And herein lies the inconsitancy. The "Nictus" that you fight as Dark/Bright Nova/Dwarf forms are cop-outs that don't fit the Kheldian Lore, but the devs couldn't be bothered to come up with anything new.

Oversimplifying, Peacebringer = Blue, Warshade/Nictus = Purple. This and the other parts of the Kheldian Lore are consistant everywhere but the "Nictus" villain group, through the Kheldian Arcs, the Moonfire Taskforce and the Council Galaxy troops.

In other words, you can't just take a Peacebringer, change a couple of powers and suddenly make it an "evil" Peacebringer or some kind of weird Nictus hybrid.

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No, Positron said that there would be an evil version of the Peacebringer with slightly altered powers too.

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Thing is, I don't get that.

A Peacebringer is a Kheldian bonded with a willing Human host
A Nictus is a Kheldian that has changed itself through scientific experimentation to allow it to forcably take a host
A Warshade is a reformed Nictus bonded with a willing Human host

An "evil" Peacebringer would be what, exactly? If it's evil in the sense that its forcably taking hosts then it would have had to change itself and in doing so become a Nictus. If it's evil in the sense that it's generally not a nice person and has bonded with a similarly evil human, then it wouldn't have any different powers, it'd just be a Peacebringer who was a bit of a *******.

Besides, I thought that Nictus couldn't stay bonded to their forcably taken hosts for very long anyway as they're eventually forced out. Given the information on the "Nictus" AT for Villains I'm guessing it's going to be a similarly "evil" Warshade with the same issues as the above "evil" Peacebringer.

The only thing to have been confirmed so far is that villains will be getting Nictus as their first epic AT.

I predict a Warshade with maybe a couple of powers tweaked.

A little grammar goes a long way.

If you're Fire/Fire then Firey Embrace is certainly better than Build Up

Breath of Fire isn't that great IMHO and probably not worth taking.

You need all your shields.

Hasten is very useful for a Brute building fury and will increase your survivability by making Healing Flames available more often, but it's not essential if you can't fit it in.

I tended to do it out of survival instinct rather than any kind of desire to kill. Most of the time as my Warshade I was teaming in PuGs, which meant that I really couldn't rely on the rest of the team to target the Void/Quantum with any kind of priority - my best chance of survival was to take it down myself.

As for Cysts, I can only take them down if I'm on a team of 3 or more - otherwise I can't get enough of an Eclipse/Mire buff off the Unbound Nictus to take it out.

Children, please - this isn't getting either of you anywhere and it's certainly not helping the OP. For the record, beyondtrial, this is the Brute AT forum and therefore it would be advisable to only apply information and experience regarding the Brute versions of powers when giving advice. Also, Murphy's Law (Also known as Sods Law) is that "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong", the phrase you were looking for is "Never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience".

Back on topic, Siphon Life is very useful if used effectively - it's little use as a panic button as it will only do 20% of your HP in one shot and it's not guaranteed to hit (and invariably doesn't when you really need it to). That said, it's very useful as part of an attack chain to keep your HP topped up and to help buff your DEF (Indirectly by way of the ACC debuff).

With regard to Aid Self being hugely overpowered - everyone but the Devs seems to know that. Healing Flames/Dull Pain/Hoarfrost/Etc are all less effective overall than Aid Self (dependant on build), but apparently 20% Toxic RES, usually not even perma any more, more than makes up for it.