_Ail_

I would echo OT here:

* Really low defense overall in your build.

* Mace mastery works very well for concept builds because of its subtle effects. No one need know you have scorp shield on and both it and pff can use lotg.

* I am more sympathetic to no hasten for doms because of lag and only one auto power possible.

I would go for capped s/l def plus permadom w/o hasten, which should be rather easily achievable with a mind/thorn. Going mace mastery for epic is always the cheapest way to achieve this...

I think that both FF and Beam are somewhat underpowered individually and still underpowered together BUT:

* They do have synergy, both thematically and mechanically.

* Just take pff, the two ally shields, dispersion, force bubble from FF. The other abilities are of too marginal use to be worthwhile. Force bubble will satisfy any repel/knockback needs you might occasionally have and mean you don't need the other gimmicks.

* Take all or pretty much all from Beam. Since FF is so passive, you will hardly ever watch redraw and can just blast all day.

It's no uber set and it gets a little tiresome looking at the beam attacks all day, but it gets the job done.

The OP should try Champions Online I think. It will give the flexibility they seem to want with the Gold (or whatever they call it...paying) subscription level. You can mix and match to your hearts content.

It would be too dramatic a change for CoX to do it very free form, and anyway as others have pointed out CoX already has hybrids in most of the Villain ATs and the Epics. And many of the Hero ATs like Controllers can be played as hybrids in any case.

In short, it is a terrible idea IMO and as others have said would waste countless hours of dev time in order to make it so that you can have a more overpowered character when we can already have ridiculously overpowered characters.

One of the main faults of CO IMO was how free form it was. You could have all of your essential powers by the mid 20s and then after that you just rounded off things by cherry picking the standard overpowered buffs and additional abilities from different frameworks to make sure you were the ultimate tank/mage/buffer. This led to a homogenization of the powers because that was the only effective way to balance them.

AT setups (i.e., classes) actually tend to lead to a greater variety in powers and abilities because powersets only need to be balanced vs other powersets. If you have a free form system, you need to balance individual abilities against other individual abilities, and this is much harder and inevitably leads to a homogenization of the abilities. So if you are balancing powerset vs powerset, you can have a set with some real overpowered abilities in it and still have it roughly balanced against another set even if they are not balanced on an ability-by-ability basis. Witness lots of fighting games for examples of this.

This is something many free form people can't seem to get their head around: That by advocating a free form system they are also simultaneously actually giving themselves less options because things will get homogenized in the name of balance.

I'd just like to add that it is much more pleasant to get permadom without hasten in the mix at all, since you can only have one power control-clicked to perma in any case. UI lag makes permadoms that need hasten something of a PITA IMO in large incarnate trials and similar circumstances.

Permadom without hasten, on the other hand, is very pleasant and reliable and not at all finicky.

I have hasten on my 200+ +recharge (w/o spiritual taken into account and yes the char is a spiritual core paragon) TA/A where really every microsecond extra you can get oil slick recharging is a blessing. On a run-of-the-mill dom though, once you get permadom you are good and you can probably start hunting other things (like soft capped defense) at that point without trying to get every spec of additional +recharge.

Summary: I think hasten is nice on characters who don't need other powers to be perma as well. If they do need some other power to be perma, however, I often find hasten to be too finicky for my taste. For example, trying to juggle PA and hasten and AM and who knows what else on an Ill/Rad is just too much bother for my taste. Your mileage may vary...

Just go TA/A. They were made for each other.

Aside from not having to watch redraw all day long, A with its fistful and explosive and rain of arrows very nicely complements the ranged AOE aspect of TA.

Hi all,

I posted some of this in another thread (the build in particular) but I wanted a new thread for the question.

Bane's seem to be unloved by many people. I have routinely been in teams where people say, "Go crab! They are the best," or words to that effect.

So what is the purpose of a bane? To my mind, their purpose is: (1) Very good single target DPS; together with (2) Very good team leadership buffs.

I think that they perform very well in these goals. I just did a Rikti Pylon test today (no inspirations, no pets (incarnate or otherwise), no temp powers, but yes other incarnate abilities) and got a time of about 15 minutes. Yes, I realize this doesn't compare to the other brag-results statements in the Rikti Pylon thread I just looked at, but it really isn't that bad. My attack chain for the pylon also wasn't very scientific...it mainly consisted of whacking whatever attack seemed to be open at the moment. Also consider that unlike a scrapper your 2xLeadership buffs will be helping the team a great deal.

See below for my build. You could substitute other stuff for the excess run and jump speeds. I really like zipping through morality missions and having a "natural" character without a travel power, so I like them. For similar thematic reasons I didn't take hasten (no glowing hands on a natural character) and stuck to mace melee attacks with the exception of surveillance. One could obviously modify these if you wanted a more unnatural build.

On the bright side, my bane's pulverize probably does as much damage as your banes shatter, so :P

I see bane builds with AOEs like bile spray or whatever and I just don't see the point. I have about a ton of other character that AOE better than a bane ever will, and trying to chase after that doesn't seem like it is going to go anywhere. I think banes are awesome for:

(1) Morality missions in small teams. Zip through them with the high movement speed and whack things with high damage. Use high defense to cheap through them in various ways, like escorting hostages even if being attacked.

(2) (For larger teams) Providing high ST dps for AV-like encounters while still buffing the entire team quite a bit with the leadership buffs.

SO WHAT IS YOUR OPINION? What do you think the purpose of your bane is? It is okay to disagree with me or to say things like, "It has no purpose except to have a fun costume," or "I love AOEing with bile spray," or "I think banes should take more pets and build for +recharge instead of +damage," or whatever else you like. I just wanted to get a conversation started about banes.



Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.952
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Mist: Level 50 Natural Arachnos Soldier
Primary Power Set: Bane Spider Soldier
Secondary Power Set: Bane Spider Training
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Medicine
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Bash -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(3), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), T'Death-Dam%(7)
Level 1: Wolf Spider Armor -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 2: Combat Training: Defensive -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(7)
Level 4: Bane Spider Armor Upgrade -- ResDam-I(A)
Level 6: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(13)
Level 8: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(13), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(15), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(15), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(17), GSFC-Build%(17)
Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(19), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(19), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(21), RedFtn-Def(21), RedFtn-EndRdx(23)
Level 12: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(23), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(25), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(25), RedFtn-Def(27), RedFtn-EndRdx(27)
Level 14: Combat Jumping -- ULeap-Jump(A), ULeap-Stlth(29)
Level 16: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(29)
Level 18: Pulverize -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(31), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(31), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), T'Death-Dam%(33)
Level 20: Shatter -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(33), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(34), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), T'Death-Dam%(36)
Level 22: Mental Training -- Run-I(A), Run-I(36)
Level 24: Cloaking Device -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(36), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(37), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(37), RedFtn-Def(37), RedFtn-EndRdx(39)
Level 26: Placate -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 28: Surveillance -- AnWeak-DefDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(A), AnWeak-Acc/DefDeb(39), AnWeak-Acc/Rchg(39), AnWeak-Acc/Rchg/EndRdx(40)
Level 30: Tactical Training: Leadership -- AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(A), AdjTgt-ToHit(40), Rec'dRet-Pcptn(40), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg(42), EndRdx-I(42)
Level 32: Crowd Control -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(42), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(43), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Oblit-%Dam(45)
Level 35: Aid Other -- Heal-I(A)
Level 38: Aid Self -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(45), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(45), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(46), Dct'dW-Heal(46)
Level 41: Web Envelope -- Acc-I(A)
Level 44: Shatter Armor -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(46), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(48), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(48), T'Death-Dam%(50)
Level 47: Tactics -- AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(A), AdjTgt-ToHit(50), EndRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Combat Training: Offensive -- Acc-I(A)
Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A), Run-I(9)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A), Jump-I(9)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(11), EndMod-I(11)
------------

You do that voodoo!

(Sorry, something came over me and it seemed the only appropriate response. It's a good thing others offered more serious advice.)

I like it. None of the other sets have fighting game fluidity so I don't know why anyone would expect this one to. It looks good and fun.