mauk2

Um....

To be perfectly honest, your claws/invuln is pretty close to the top of the heap in the 'fun' department if you want to survive and have fun. So is the ma/wp. (I have one of each at 50 and heavily IO'd out to boot. The claw/inv can solo the comp in the ITF, for an example, or farm rularuu for funsies.)

What exactly are you after, here? If it's something different, try an elec/elec, huge fun there. Or a fire/fire. For REALLY different, try dark/spines.

....And this would be why I did not mention shockwave.

Shockwave is an excellent attack for non-crowd loving defense sets, like SR and EL. But for sets with defense aura's, Spin is Win.

To be honest, with hasten and even moderate recharge slotting, claws is perfectly fine (for invuln) with only three attacks: Followup, Focus, and Spin. Stay at the aggro cap by charging the next mob when you run out of minions (two Spins max on a broot) and it's a savagely fast playstyle.

But bring IO's. LOTS of IO's

Fair warning, Castle has stated flat-out that Shield Charge is broken, and doing waaay too much damage.

Knowing is half the battle!


That said, Claws/Invuln is a stunningly good combo. Claws is AOE heavy, and Invuln loves to be in a crowd.

(Looks at forum.)

Dude. Scrapper. Duh.

Take everything but Unstoppable. Maybe skip Taunt too, unless you wanna be 'tank light'.

Early on, you want TI, Uny, DP, and Invincible. Later, take all the passives.

Slotting wise, I recommend 3 cytoskeletons in Invince if you can afford it, if not,one end reducer and two defence.

Five resist powers (you pick 'em) get five reactive armors each. The last passive gets three Aegis.

DP gets five slots, for a couple of the healing uniques, then as much recharge and heal as you can cram in. Alternately, slot the healing uniques all in health and slot DP for max recharge and heal.

All the defensive powers get LotG's, I like sets of four. Stamina gets a performance shifter + end, and I usually slot in a set of four of those for the bonuses.

Sprinkle in Steadfast + def, Kismet's, achille's, etc to taste.

Pools, I recommend leaping, fighting, health, and leadership. Pick powers for +defense and +resist.

Epic pools, ehn, the patrons mostly bore me.

For your attacks, a light End set is good, maybe claws. You want some knockdown or stun, to help with survivability.

Have fun!

Well, yes, except that before I wiped my drive, I saved copies of everything in my CoH folder and put it all back into the new install.

So I should have everything I had before...except I don't.

Am I doing something wrong? Has this issue cropped up before?

+4x8 Rularuu solo? Hell, I'd love to even see what happens. I bet the brutes and wisps and natterlings would not be too bad. The eyeballs...will destroy you.

I bet the mixed spawns will destroy you even faster.....

Hmmm.

Now I am curious.

Has anyone routinely solo'd mixed Rularuu at +4x8? I'd be impressed as hell if so.


In my book they're still the toughest faction out there, even nastier than Vanguard.

Dude, all-controller ITF's. All defender ITF's. All Tanker ITF's. All scrapper ITF's. All-blaster old-style Positrons.

I have seen or participated in all of the above. No archetype is needed, ever.


Absolutely. A good tank makes everything better, the same way a good controller, or a good defender, or a good scrapper, or even a good blaster makes things better.


In my experience, in most situations, not much. A scrapper is more mobile and hits harder, but the tanker is always in a target-rich environment. On a well-paced team, the tanker tends to start the fights, the scrapper tends to end them.


See above. A well paced tanker is attacking more things, all the time, so it tends to even out.

That said, I find that a tanker's most valuable contribution to a team is completely intangible.

More than any other archetype, a good tankers REAL job is to give the team confidence.

If all else fails, a good tanker will keep the team active and involved, give time to recover from a near-total wipeout, be able to drop wakies and drag away aggro, just generally give the team confidence that no matter what, they can handle it.

And that's a valuable thing.

This.... is awesome.

I generally try to minimize my usage of 'macro-fu' because I will forget how I set things up and drive myself nuts.

Butt his one, I may have to save and archive. Maybe.

LOL, you have a talent for igniting firestorms.

What you need to understand is that tanker survivability is a combination of the primary, the secondary, pool powers, and enhancers.

As stated, ANY tank will do well if played well and properly constructed with layered defenses combined with soft mitigation.


PLAY WHAT YOU LIKE. All else is secondary.

That said, a WP/ss is a good combination. WP is a solid tanker primary that is very easy to use. Toggle-up and go. Yes, it is not a strong aggro-holder on it's own. Attack frequently for gauntlet, use taunt liberally, and learn the unparalled joy that is FootStomp.

You'd do just fine with it.

WP/ss is a good mix. WP provides a solid, easy to use foundation. SS adds in considerable mitigation via knockdown/knockup, adequate if not exceptional AOE, and quite good damage if you go for a max-recharge rage-machine.

You'll have fun and do a good job. So go and do.

Congratulations! I have yet to slot a single purple enhancer, ever, and I do anything I darn well want to. Purples are far overpriced, and simply not that neccesary.



Yeah, I suspect there will be nothing good whatsoever in Going Rogue, and the Incarnates powers/abilities are going to be totally boring, too.

...wait. No, there's CRAP-TON of neat stuff looming on the horizon. I suspect alt-itis will keep us all going for years to come. SD is just another FOTM.


Stay strong, man! STAY STRRRRRONG!

AHA!

Thanks, then!

Now, they're FUN.

"Jack of all trades, Master of none."

I just prefer more focus. YMMV.


Because it isn't an AOE? Why would I take an extra ST attack when I wanted AOE's? I am a tank, I don't really care how much damage it does. With hasten, AAO, Shield Charge, Whirling Mace, and Crowd Control, I am not short-changing the team at all on my damage output.

Really, the nicest part of the pbaoe is that it allows you to split-tank, since you don't have to target it. I have often,, for instance, tanked Lord Recluse via taunt aura and a pbaoe while keeping the flyer targeted for taunts. Works great!

LOL, yes, that is true, but unless you're farming Rularuu, there simply isn't THAT much out there, is there?

Maybe Arachnos? My Dm/inv usually cruises through the spiders, but occasionally gets tagged with one of those freakin' debuffs, makes it a bit dicey, but 2400 hit points and a spam-heal will carry you through a lot of rough spots.

The worst is Freedom Corps, and lets not mention Vanguard(shudder). Malta sappers are no big deal most times.... Flippin' Artemis are ALWAYS a pain, even with slow resist IO's in the build.

But those are fairly rare things. And in far more common scenarios (wall in Cimmy for example, or freakshow map, or council map, or warriors, DE, Rikti, etc, etc) a DM/inv is reaaaly sweet.

And if you're that worried about psi, you can always get the Rikti accolade and temp powers.

Er, no, you must be mistaken. The Dev's have a solid policy to never buff anything.

I reads it on the internetz, so it must be true! LOL.

(Although a boost to fire armor would be teh sweet!)

Also, folks need to chill. This thread is far from the first time SD has been looked at, I posted months ago that it was inevitable it was getting nerfed.

Hmmm, how gud is mah search-fu.....

Seems is gud!

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...98#post2641998

If you have to hate on anybody, bring it, I am tuff.

Yeah, okay, now I ignore you.

Yay you!

Indeed, it isn't. I am not a stealther, but lots of people I know in-game were speeding lots of content by rushing and clicking.

In addition, I suspect what Arcanaville is feeling so clever about is the fact that you can activate a glowy while defeated. (Naughty, I know, but I never bother, I like hittin' stuff too much.)

The Dev's also recently changed how the Cimmerorans spawn, so that the 'three guard' spawns on the sybils are often mixed in with an adjacent full-sized spawn.

All changes meant to reduce stealthing and rushing. Which is no skin off my nose, I play bare-knuckle destroyers.

I suspect they did the anti-stealth thing by going through the various factions and raising the perception radius of choice 'smart' mobs. Like snipers for Nemesis. I frankly don't care, it makes the game more fun and challenging in my book.

I have done similar tricks for custom factions I was designing for AE, to be honest.

In recent months I've noticed a lot of bad guys getting bumps: Cimmy's, for example, now seem to buff each other quite a bit more when you herd them up so they're much harder to hit, and the Engineer dudes now seem to get WAY more defense. (Due to the lack of armors. I bet they're super reflex now.)

My personal theory is that the Dev's watched to see how zesty people were making AE content, (for challenge) and are now upping all the other factions in-game to match.

I know for a provable fact that the standard factions are getting far tougher, because I designed a custom AE faction to fight and handily defeat Carnies. A few months ago, it was a slaughter. Now, the Carnies crush them.

Same with Banished Pantheon, for that matter.

Yay for the Devs! More challenge is fun!

I'd ask for more xp, but really? Leveling is cake easy these days.




Oh no, big changes are afoot!

But apparently we're all too dense to notice. Duhr for us.

To actually answer your question:

For a shield/mace, you want the Energy Mastery Epic pool, and I'd highly recommend Conserve power with the base slot full of recharge and Physical Perfection with at least a Performance Shifter +End proc in it.

For your other pools, I'd recommend:

Leaping, for combat jumping and super jump

Fitness, for hurdle, health, and stamina.

Fighting, for boxing (throwaway), touch and weave

Speed, for hasten.

In Shield Defense, I'd take everything except Grant Cover and One with the Shield. Both are of limited utility. A beefy scrapper can benefit from Grant Cover, but serious AOE's make it iffy at best.

In mace.... it's more complicated. I took all but pulverize, clobber, and shatter. But I was optimizing for AOE. I could easily see ditching whirling mace (weak) for Shatter.

Mace is a ticklish set to pick powers for, because you really should decide what you want to be good at: stun or knockdown.

I leave it up to you.

BTW, I found shield/wm to be an extremely enjoyable tank. The major issue is lack of healing, but health and physical perfection with the four hitpoint/stamina accolades makes it bearable.

Psi hole is completely ignorable. Dull pain and ancillary regen will get you past anything less than Carnies solo. Siphon makes even that a moot point.

Capping defenses is totally not required. Layered defenses are.

You have good defenses and with sets CAN softcap easily with six or so in a bunch, and for an invuln, that's not hard at all. On top of that, you get more than adequate resists, capped hit points and a beefy heal, hefty status and debuff resists, AND a fast cycling attack that does ANOTHER beefy heal.

Trust me, it's not any single thing that makes the combo as unkillable as a cartoon mouse.

It's ALL the things, working together.

You pay for it via slower kills. If that's okay, then onward!

DM/sr is nice, as is kat/WP.

I have a softcapped sr, and a kat/regen. Both of them are fragile little eggshells compared to my DM/Inv.

Yes, I am serious.

Now, a DM/Inv is very limited in damage output due to the low amount and poor quality of the AOE damage available. But if you want to wade through the most horrific of situations and come out alive on the other side, I have to point at DM/Inv.

Frankenslot Siphon, three cytoskeleton's in invincibility, max out Dull Pain for recharge and heal, then max out global defense and recharge.

Simple, but expensive.

I'd also skip Jacob's ladder, I personally have trouble with the shape and the long animation time isn't worth it, especially when you have Thunder Strike and Lightning Rod.

OMG, Thunder Strike and Lightning Rod, so much goodness...


Decent advice, but I'd propose Air Superiority from the flight pool. The knockdown stacks very nicely with your other big hitters, and it's a quick-cycle ST that fits well with the set.

Sadly, hover and flight are not so good.... But AS is such a good fit, look hard at it anyway.

Well, it's your heal AND your native endurance reduction power. The first thing I do is put three rechargers in it, you want it up AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Cannot emphasize that enough!


Noice!

I will always advise a real travel power, but if you're deadset to skip it, this is very good advice. Hurdle is NICE.

~

So true. Damage aura's are free damage, get them, slot them, love them.

Uh huh.

Right. You're aware that the devs have been monkeying with the bad guys power levels without saying anything for months now, right?

Come on. Don't treat me like an idiot if you aren't sure about it.

Or here's an idea: Don't treat people like idiots. It's a bad habit and doesn't reflect well upon you.

Horse Puckey. It's all about the 'new shiney'. The art lies in keeping it all on the rails.

Given how horrifically this thing was broken at launch, and they still managed to piece it back together (oh Purple Nerf, how I rail at thee) I suspect they can run this artistically for a lot longer than you give them credit for.

Hell, I17 was all about 'New Shiney'.

Going Rogue is all about 'New Shiney.'

Un-screwing Invulnerability was a matter of 'New Shiney.'

The upcoming 'End Game' system (horrible, self-defeating naming on that, by the way.) is all about the 'New Shiney.'

Buffs and nerfs are ways to generate 'New Shiney' in existing content. Hard but true. "Hey, I hear that Invuln doesn't suck now, I was gonna come back and play again" has been stated IN THIS VERY THREAD.

What part of this are you failing to grasp?


Sure. That's why for ages, game designers kept their inner mechanics closely held indeed. Like this game did at launch.


You're talking about the stealth changes, right?

I don't bother with stealth often, so I don't care. But all the people I played with noticed it immediately, and promptly compensated. Without epic crying about it.

Because it was just stealth.

If it's something else, I'm all ears. Although I've noticed almost all factions have been getting sneakily tougher for years. At launch a team could farm +10's easy. My early tank would often solo +7 bosses for xp even after the Purple Nerf.

Nowadays? Nope, that don't happen. The Dev's have slowly but steadily tuned down the dynamic range of difficulty so that the restrictions of the Purple Nerf are no longer even visible.

Good for them.

Well, I know how to plan builds, so my slotting and power choices aren't terrible.

Then I use parry when I need it, and I do some knockdowns, and I tend to cram in close to the tank for the phalanx fighting, and I know how to joust when all that fails.

Plus, since I tend to wedge in close, the already excellent BS damage is even moar awesome. Plus BS is a strong debuffing set (for a scrapper) so I bring a lot of subtle utility to teams that makes things just 'go smoothly.'

bs/sd just go together like peanut butter and jelly