_Tundra_

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Ia ICE completely useless then? i was thinking of grabbing block of ice and slapping some serious ACC and Hold in it for pinning down any psi bosses etc, likely to work?

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Block of ice is great for holding troublesome PvE opponents. Ice storm is pretty bad though. Too short duration and long recharge. The ranged attack is ok I guess. Single target immobilize is ok for an immob, but why would you want one on a tank?

Block of ice is the only epic left on my tank currently.

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Ice Storm is great for Stone Tanks - works well with the Immob from Mud Pots. The attack is very fast, both in animation and recharge. That's great for Gauntlet use if nothing else, but it's also Tundra's most damaging single target attack, /Ice being rather light on damage.

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Congrats Tundra, I guess it was fitting that a toon that was mainly soloed to 50 dinged on his own but I would have liked to been there but The Drunken TF team were calling lol

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Well, a dash through Hami isn't really something to take a team on anyway

I don't think the Monkey has earnt a single XP solo yet, so that should be a less solitary ascent! And Maxwell's Demon will most likely continue to need help blowing @$*# up...

Well, I thought I'd take advantage of the fact that exploration badges now award XP and hit 50 with The Late in some style...
At the heart of the Hamidon
The inevitable consequences...
We're all dead together here.

It's been a fun ride with Late, I first rolled him back in January in anticipation of upcoming changes that looked like they'd improve SR... and had to park him at 49 for a couple of weeks to experience them at all in the end.

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To this day I've only heard bad things about it... I'll propably give it a try on test once I reach that level.

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I've heard people give vague negative opinions about it too, but nothing specific - which too be honest doesn't surprise me as it doesn't have any real downsides. I'm guessing people are just a little disappointed with it as a top teir power.

But it's a targetted AoE knockdown, TH debuff, -DEF debuff, -Recharge debuff, -Jump, -Fly which also does a little damage and applies a (very) short Hold. OK, it's not Fulcrum Shift but it's still a very handy power.

No Liquefy? I find it to be a very good debuff/crowd control power.

Disruption Field isn't that expensive a toggle - two End reducers are more than enough and you can get away with one.

For a team of any size, recharges in Clarity will help a lot - it really doesn't need an End reducer.

If you aren't going all out AoE, Neutrino Bolt would offer way more DPS and debuffing than Electron Haze - and again, unless it's in an AoE attack chain Neutron Bomb is a pretty underwhelming attack too. NB, XRB and CB make a good single target chain, though.

Out of interest, what do you have against Irradiate? It's the best example of both of Rad blast's main strengths (AoE and -DEF). If it's because you don't want to get into close range I'd plan on finding room for a range enhancement for CB since its base range only just about reaches the edge of an Irradiate AoE.

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Oh, and why so many slots for Sonic Cage? I know it can be useful (my Sonic Def. makes good use of it for keeping anchors alive) but surely not useful enough that it needs 3 recharges?

Actually, I think there is a small +Acc on lots of the Rad blast attacks as well as the DEF debuff. According to the nofuture site (which is normally pretty spot on) 6 of the 8 powers in Rad blast have Acc > 1

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With Nucleopatra I mainly use the debuffs against AVs (where they are very handy) and other strong boss types. The rest of the time I'm using Choking Cloud and Oppressive Gloom from the Dark Epic pool to lock mobs down and out of the fight.

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I tend to do something pretty similar. EF still gets used as it's nice and quick to apply, but RI is now only used for AVs, soloing or in a duo. CC and OG are an excellent combination - especially with Tactics running as well. And thanks to no longer constantly running the debuffs - and picking up Dark Consumption - End isn't a big issue either.

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Artic mastery has the hold and immob, the blast and Ice Storm, which as a Rain power reduces aggro control.

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This is true for most Tanks, but it works rather well for Stone Tanks since Mud Pots is a PBAoE Immob. Comfortably my most damaging attack against a herd of minions.

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About strategies for Radiation Infection and Enerverating Field - I see that both are AoE, but I'm assuming that the most impact of both RI and EF is seen on the anchor itself?

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This is not the case - it effects every enemy in the area equally, so you can just use whichever enemy is likely to stay around longest as your anchor. Your anchor will inevitably get killed quickly by teammates, though - learning to live with that is part of the 'Zen of Rad'.

First there is no anchor. Then there is an anchor. Then there's none.

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Finally, I skipped Mutation on the basis of the description in CoH Planner that the ally is left severely weakened afterwards. Is this actually worth taking - it sounds like a Rad version of Resurrect, but the severely weakened bit puts me off.

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The version of CoH Planner you're using is severely out of date. Mutation is indeed a Rez power. It provides a really substantial buff to the rezzed character, but there hasn't been any kind of penalty associated with it since the launch of I3. Quite a useful power, although there are plenty of other Rad powers I'd normally take ahead of it.

From looking at this and your other thread, it does kind of seem you may just not be cut out for Tanking... but you never know - as Faultline said above, Tanking can be very pro-active indeed, just not normally in the sense of defeating enemies. I posted my thoughts on the subject here, in case they help you decide.

I'd suggest you get one of your other linked toons going first, ideally a Scrapper or Blaster for this purpose, and team a lot. By the time you've reached level 20-25 you should have a pretty good idea of how the succesful Tanks are behaving and if that style of play appeals to you.

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I think it doesn't buff +res.

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I haven't tested it, but I wouldn't expect it to. It boosts secondary effects, and Damage (and by extension Damage resistance, which is the same thing with a multiplier <1.0) is one of the only things the game considers to be a primary effect.

It's a very nice powerset combination, should make for fun!

Personally I took Siphon Life much earlier (lvl 10 or 12, I think - I posted a build somewhere on here recently but can't remember the link...). I found it enormously useful and it's kept me alive more times than I can count. It heals for 20% of Max HP when slotted up, as well as filling out your attack chain early on which is pretty significant for a DM.

Edge is right that you only need an extra 10-15% to hit your maximal defences, but since DM attacks contribute quite nicely to that I'd still say the synergy is very good.

I'd disagree with Cynic about the EndMods in Dark Consumption, too. Having them slotted there means you'll get a really significant chunk of End by hitting only one enemy, and fill yourself up by hitting two - and you'll often need End most near the end of a fight when there aren't many enemies around.

Your travel plans sould work out well, I think - I found Super Speed impossible to resist because its Stealth component is so useful in PvE, though.

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and doesn't suffer from most the downsides other sets have (Psi vulnerability/movement restrictions/lacking status protection).

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errr... how does it not suffer from Psi vulnerability? The DEF in Ice Armour is all damage-typed, and as far as I'm aware none of them (including Energy Absorption) offer Psi DEF.

Congrats, the teamage has been fun!

Congrats Sparkz

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Unlike when I got J to 50 i have absolutly no idea what to take on the trip up next.

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Well, I reckon Jakita would be a SS/Inv tank with a hefty invetsment in the Speed pool...

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While FoN is a fantastic power, there are others out there that can best it, i think the resistance on FoN is Mag1, thats 1 blaster hold it can resist (a troller hold is 3 times as powerfuland effective).


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FWIW, neither the long or short description (or any of my experience with the power) say it has any resistance to status effects at all. It's described as providing high resistance to all damage types but Psi and boosting End recovery.

That's why I originally asked about Hero planners. As far as I'm aware, the info in Hero Builder (which was copied from Unstoppable) is the only place mez resistance is mentioned. I can only guess that people keep bringing it up on the boards because far more people have played with Hero Builder than have tried out the power.

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Probably - do you run acrobatics too? Mez resist isn't really the point, though it'd be nice to know if it stacks with acrobatics - but as you still have 'huge' resistance to damage, a break free is all you need and you won't be dead before you get to use it!

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Don't get me wrong, it's a great power (and I'm certainly not planning on speccing it out), but I'm pretty sure it doesn't give Mez protection. I do run Acrobatics as well, yes - invaluble for avoiding KB if nothing else.

Incidentally, it's pretty easy for some Blaster builds to have three Holds. Ice/Elec can manage it without even needing an APP, and my Elec/Elec/Elec had three until I respecced into Force, but I tend to find two to be enough.

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With the mez resists and damage resist FoN gives - you wade in - do tons of damage till it runs out then leg it.


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Are you taking that description from a hero planner by any chance? The resistances of FoN are very nice indeed, but I always get mezzed straight through it so I assumed that the planner descriptions were just a holdover from when Unstoppable was originally put in that slot in the Force APP.

If it does offer Mez protection it's very low Mag indeed (eg. Oppressive Gloom will still Stun me through it), although it's certainly nice that you still keep your resists whilst mezzed.

Well, one or two comments - I've played both of these powersets quite a bit, although not on the same toon...

Fallout is a waste of a power most of the time in PvE. If you're planning to PvP a lot maybe someone with experience of it could comment on its usefulness there.

There's no point slotting Charged Bolts for End Drain I'm afraid, the base drain is far too low. You do want 3 end drains in Short Circuit, though.

Rad Infection doesn't really need End reducers - I'd go with 3 TH debuff and 3 Def debuff instead.

A 3rd Hold duration in Choking Cloud is well worth it.

And although it's not mandatory for a Defender, Radiant Aura (your PBAoE heal) really is well worth picking up - I'd certainly take it over Fallout myself.

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Bearing in mind that the squid's been sat at 42 for about 8 months or so, which could also be described as 'within sight of the finishing line' :P

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Compared to Ghost, that's awfully near power-levelling speed...

Congrats Lifeline! Sorry I wasn't there for the final push, but good to hear there was more multi-team chaos going on.

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I choose unstoppable at 32 and it has left me eating carpet regulary ever since, dont get me wrong it is great but how can you tell without having a stopwatch handy that its goin to run out?

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I7 will help with this. Buff icons (including the icon for Unstoppable) will flash for a few seconds before they end. Very useful indeed - try it out on Test!

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Is there anyway of making it last longer?

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'Fraid not.

Congrats again guys. Those last two missions were crazy - could hardly see the screen for my Herostats buff bar!

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1. What with I7 adding accuracy enhancements to drain psyche, is a stamina-less build possible/practical now?


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I already run a Mind/Psi without Stamina relying on Drain Psyche in I6 - so that would be a yes from me.

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I've just picked up TK for my Kin Defender and found this guide, although a little out of date, to be incredibley useful as a learning tool.

As has been said before, TK is an endurance killer - but if you can't cope with that as a Kineticist, who can?

It demands a lot of skill but adds so much to your solo-ability and is great fun! Comboing with Dominate from the same power pool gives you the stackable holds to shut down any boss and clumping lots of enemies together makes for better Fulcrum Shifts!

I've loved TK since I picked it up, it's added so much to my repertoire and is the sort of power that I'll still be learning to use for a long, long time to come.

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On top of all that, it also comes complete with a most excellent 6-Million Dollar Man sound effect. How many more reasons do you need to pick it?