BrimstoneGale

Brimstone Gale's Fire/Stone Guide

This guide is based on my experiences as well as things I picked up on the forums. I will talk about what powers I chose and why, and what powers I skipped, and give information about the powers. Naturally however, my information on powers I chose is usually more accurate than the ones I didn’t. While my secondary is stone I only have 6 powers out of it, and discarding Taunt and Build Up, that means 4 out of 7 stone attacks, so if you’re looking for good Stone Melee info you should use other guides to complement this one.

Fiery Aura

First thing – Temperature Protection is an absolutely useless power. It offers 20% fire resistance and 10% cold resistance. You’re going to max out Fire resistance without taking TP and while 10% cold resistance would be a nice addition it still can’t justify wasting a power slot.

Fiery Embrace should only be taken if your secondary is Fire Melee, otherwise take Build Up – it recharges faster, costs less endurance and offers accuracy bonus (FE only buffs damage).

Speaking of which, BU is a really nice power. It doesn’t require heavy enhancements investment and I find its accuracy buff no less important than damage buff. You could certainly skip it if damage is not very important to you or if you have a tight build, but for my money, you would probably get more damage out of build up (once you have your main attacks) than from taking an additional attack.

Anyway, back to Fiery Aura.

If you take nothing else out of FA, you must take Fire Shield, Plasma Shield and Burn. These are the three set-defining powers.

Fire Shield gives 30% resistance to Smash, Lethal and Fire damage, and 10% resistance to Cold damage. It costs 0.38eps (endurance [points] per second), which is not cheap but not too bad either. It also gives you resistance to disorient, which is very useful against Tsoo and to an extent against Lost, and this is in the early game, later on it becomes even more important.

As one of your only two shields, FS should be six-slotted as soon as possible. Until you get Stamina (more on that later), you should have 1 or 2 endurance reduction enhancements (end redux) in it, and the rest damage resistance (dmgres). Once you get Stamina, you could slot it with 1 end redux, 5 dmgres, or 6 dmgres, depending on your endurance use and slot availability.

Plasma Shield gives you 30% resistance to Energy and Negative Energy, and 10% resistance to Cold. It also protects you from Sleep and Hold, and costs 0.41eps. With FS and PS on you’re definitely going to be feeling the end drain (even if it’s not visible) but I do not recommend slotting it with end redux (post Stamina of course, before you should put 1 or 2 end redux). It’s the only energy protection you can get so you should squeeze every last ounce of resistance out of it. Unlike FS you can wait with slotting it a bit (though take it ASAP), but by 30, at the latest, you should have it six-slotted.

Burn is what makes us different from every other tanker out there, and what helps us get over the lack of protection relatively to other tanks. They might be able to withstand 100 mobs pounding on them, but it takes them ages to brawl all those mobs to death. We on the other hand, lay down burn and put it on auto-cast, /e newspaper, and go grab a cup of java. When we return the mobs are dead. (Disclaimer: Very few tanks, regardless of primary, can actually withstand 100 even-level mobs, and even then not for long… rest of it though is all true. )

Seriously though, Burn has very high accuracy and high damage. If you have perma-Hasten then slot it all with damage. If you don’t you could still slot it all for damage but I prefer to put 1 recharge reduction enhancement (rechrg redux) in it, so that I can have a second burn patch going by the time the first one dies out.

Blazing Aura while a great power I personally found the additional end drain it causes to be too much. However, here are the numbers – it costs 0.75eps, which means you should put at least 1 end redux in it, and it has a brawl index of 0.6111, which accumulates nicely. I think it ticks every 2 seconds. Originally BA was used for additional “lazy” damage but with the recent addition of taunt component it is now used as an aggro control tool (actually more like “the lazy herder’s best friend” ). With 1 taunt enhancements it can be reliably used to keep mobs in burn patch without using Taunt (the power). Some even go as far as dumping Taunt but I wouldn’t recommend it, Taunt offers controlled, targeted and selective aggro management too, something BA can’t do. One accuracy enhancement in it is also recommended because it needs to hit.

If you take it for taunt then 3 slots should be enough for basic needs – 1 acc, 1 end redux, 1 taunt. Of course 6-slotting it means that you can enhance every one of these aspects even more, and it’ll be that much cheaper, more accurate and better at holding agro. If you take it for damage then you definitely should six-slot it, otherwise the damage dealt isn’t worth the endurance cost - 1 acc and 1/2 end redux, 3/4 dmg.

Healing Flames both heals, and provides resistance to Toxic damage for the duration of 45 seconds. It recharges every 60 seconds and with only 1 rechrg redux (sans perma-hasten) you can overlap its effect, essentially giving you a shield against toxic damage. It’s a great power to put on auto-cast if you go against Vahz or Hydra so get it early, but before Stamina be careful with it, since it costs 15 ep and when set on auto-cast can quickly drain you out of your endurance. Its resistance is 20% to toxic damage and heals about 25% of your HP, which means you want it for both effects and that makes slotting difficult. Without perma-hasten you should put 1 end redux in it, if you have perma-hasten, don’t bother. As for heals and resistances, an even approach is probably best, i.e. 2/3 heals, 2/3 dmgres – you definitely want to six slot it although you don’t need to hurry with that. At the levels you encounter Vahz and PP hydras, you don’t have SOs, so slotting it for dmgres isn’t necessary and the default resistance will serve you just fine. Later on, toxic damage becomes less common until high levels so there’s no rush to slot it.

Consume is a great pre-Stamina power and even after stamina it’s very useful. You might have trouble squeezing it before Stamina, but then again, if you take it you can delay Stamina till 22 much more easily, which gives you the room to actually take it (it’s the circle of life ). It causes some damage to mobs and replenishes your endurance. Its base recharge time it 3 minutes, which means that without perma-hasten you’d want to put at least 2 rechrg redux in it. You also want at least 1 acc, and 2 is best for those times when you’re in groups and going after much higher enemies. You only need it to hit 3-4 mobs to get replenish your entire endurance bar, but if you can spare the slots, then putting endurance recharge enhancements in it will mean that even if you miss a mob or two you will still get all the endurance you need.

Rise of the Phoenix is a self-resurrection power (self-rez), and IMHO is the best self-rez. It restores half of your hit-points and endurance, makes you invulnerable for several seconds (so you can get your shields back up) and stuns enemies in a large radius around you. Plus it looks wicked cool It’s great with the default slot, just put heal or rechrg redux in it. I personally took it, but some people hate it because in order to use it, you have to die – decide for yourself, but one thing for sure, it should be one of the last powers you take, because if you accept the inevitability of death then you are sure to die.

Stone Melee

Couldn’t find any good guides for this powerset so after the initial write-up I’m going to add description of each power with all the specs.

This is a fairly straightforward set. Stone Fists, Stone Mallet, Heavy Mallet and Seismic Smash are your single target, light, moderate, heavy and extreme damage attacks (respectively). They form a nice attack chain but personally I couldn’t fit Heavy Mallet into my build. I chose Stone mallet because in this case I preferred speed and endurance cost to damage, but going the other way is perfectly fine. Quick note on Seismic Smash - it’s got a Mag 4 disorient with a fairly high chance of occurring, which means that it’s not that uncommon to see a boss stumbling around after being hit with SS Stone Fists also have disorient but it’s only Mag 3 (or 2), which means no single hit boss stuns, and it has a much lower chance of landing.

Fault is a short-ranged target AoE with knockback and stun but no damage. It is only Mag 3 stun so no one-shot stunning the bosses. I personally don’t like it because as a tank, and especially fire tank, I don’t want mobs wondering around, possibly leaving my burn patch. However, it does provide a nice way to take out a group of mobs out of a fight. If you decided to take it, I wouldn’t waste many slots on it. At most 2 extra - for 1 acc, 1 stun and 1 rechrg redux, but I would even dump the rechrg redux.

Tremor is a player based (or is it point blank?) AoE attack (PBAoE) with a 15 ft. radius. It’s great for grabbing additional aggro and it also has a knockdown component. It doesn’t have high damage but since it’s AoE the damage accumulates, and as a tank you’re going to be surrounded by mobs anyway. One acc, maybe even two since it’s AoE, is definitely recommend, and it costs 20 ep so an end redux is also not such a bad idea, it doesn’t leave many slots (3, 4 at most) for damage, but that’s ok, you make up for it with mob numbers.

Hurl Bolder is a short ranged single target attack, it looks pretty cool and its damage is comparable to Stone Mallet (it also costs roughly the same and recharges at the same speed), but it takes 4 seconds to activate, which is longer than most people like. In Issue 4 it’s going to get –fly component, i.e. you can now knockdown fliers with it, which makes it somewhat more attractive, especially for PvP. As an attack you’d want to six-slot it for most effectiveness but it’s going to be hard to find the slots, so it might end up being a situational “knock down that annoying blaster” type of power.
I’m definitely considering taking it (or respecing for it) but I’m still not sure about it.

Stone Melee, Detailed Power Specifications

Stone Fist – Melee, Single Target
Brawl Index (BI): 2.7778
Endurance Cost (End): 7.5 pts
Recharge Time (Recharge): 4 sec
Activation (Act): 1 sec
Misc: Stun (Mag 2), 10 sec. duration

Stone Mallet – Melee, Single Target
BI: 4.5556
End: 12 pts
Recharge: 8 sec
Act: 2 sec
Misc: Knockdown

Taunt – Ranged, AoE
Recharge: 3 sec
Act: 3 sec
Range: 70 ft

Heavy Mallet – Melee, Single Target
BI: 6.3333
End: 23.5 pts
Recharge: 13 sec
Act: 2 sec
Misc: Knockdown

Build Up – Self Buff
Buffs Damage 100%, Accuracy 60%
Lasts for 10 seconds
Recharge: 90 sec
Act: 1 sec

Fault – Short Range, AoE
End: 14.5 pts
Recharge: 20 sec
Act: 2 sec
Range: 20 ft.

Hurl Boulder – Short Range, Single Target
BI: 4.5556
End: 13.5 pts
Recharge: 8 sec
Act: 4 sec
Range: 40 ft.

Tremor – PBAoE
BI: 2.7778
End: 19.5 pts
Recharge: 14 sec
Act: 4 sec
AoE Radius: 15 ft.

Seismic Smash – Melee, Singe Target
BI: 9.8889
End: 26.5 pts
Recharge: 20 sec
Act: 2 sec
Misc: Stun (Mag 4), 10+ (?) sec. duration

Pool Powers

There are three powers pools that every Fire/* tanker must take – Fitness, Leaping, Fighting. You can certainly do with out some of them but you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot.

Fitness

Stamina, Stamina, Stamina! Take it ASAP and slot it ASAP. You simply cannot perform effectively as a tank without Stamina, especially as a Fire tank. You might think you’re doing well until another tank comes, with the exact same build except that they have Stamina, and then you’ll be wondering “How come he’s kicking so much a$$??”

Leaping

As Fire tankers we don’t get knockdown/knockback resistance so Acrobatics is almost a must (it’s certainly possible to get by without it but it’s not gonna be pretty, especially with the addition of knockback to players in I4). Which means that you’re going to take leaping pool for your travel needs as well, which is not so bad. Super Jump is a great travel power, and Combat Jumping is dirt-cheap and offers 5% defense to ranged and melee damage (not AoE). All three powers work great with just the default slots – defense buff in CJ, jump in SJ and end redux in Acrobatics.

Fighting

You need fighting pool in order to max out your Smash/Lethal (S/L) damage resistance. Without it the only damage resistance you can max is Fire. I’ll give more numbers later, but for now, suffice it to say that the default slot in Tough is enough. Weave is also a good power, it’s not quite as necessary as Acrobatics or Stamina but it can add up to about 26% defense for a relatively cheap price (it has base 12.5% defense to ranged, melee, and it costs 0.2eps).

Note about Speed pool

You could take hasten (and make it perma) but I don’t feel it’s necessary. As tankers, we get the least use out of hasten because it only helps us with our secondary powers (and thus secondary role/function). All other ATs can perform their primary (and secondary) functions better with hasten, tankers’ primary function is defense, which we accomplish via mostly toggle or auto powers that don’t benefit much from hasten. With SJ, super speed is not as necessary but if you have power slots to spare and went the perma-hasten route you might as well take it.

Other power pools are really just a matter of preference, though if you want to participate in Hami raids, having hover slotted with few fly enhancements will make it a lot easier.

Some numbers for defenses and resistance.

Fire Shield – 6 slotted with green (+1) SOs gives 67.8% resistance to S/L and Fire, and 22.6% to Cold.
Add to that Tough with 1 dmgres (which gives 24.2% resistance to S/L dmg) and you get 92% S/L resistance (90% is the cap).

If you decide to put 1 end redux into Fire Shield and add another dmgres SO to Tough then you get 89.9% resistance. If you have the slots to spare, you could add another slot to Tough and slot it with 1 end redux and 2 dmgres, and you’ll get near-capped resistance to S/L and it’ll cost you much less endurance. (0.44eps, as oppose to the 0.6eps you get with no end redux).

Six-slotted Plasma Shield gives you 67.8% energy/negative energy/fire resistance, which means that with FS you cap fire resistance easily, but that’s as much energy resistance as you gonna get.

Healing Flames starts with 20% toxic resistance and adds another 4% for each green dmgres SO you add to it.

Combat Jumping gives you 6% defense (with 1 defbuf) and 5-slotted Weave gives you 25% defense, together giving you 31% defense, which is very nice and definitely noticeable. It cuts down the minions’ chance to hit you by more than half.

Ancillary Power Pools

Pyre and Artic Masteries give you both, immobilization, hold, and two attacks. Earth mastery gives you all control powers – immobilize, sleep(aoe), hold and stun(aoe). Energy Mastery gives you to utility powers (Conserve Power and Focused Accuracy) and two attacks.

As a tank I don’t see many uses for holds (or stuns), and while the attacks in Pyre/Arctic/Energy mastery are nice you’re probably not going to have enough slots to make them worth it, then again sometimes even a weak ranged attack in enough.

IMO the Pyre, Artic and Earth masteries should be only taken for concept reasons. Otherwise, take Conserve Power and if you still have powers to spare then anything else from Energy Mastery will be ok.

I find Conserve Power indispensable. Basically, for its duration (90 seconds) I can use all my attacks as fast as they come up without ever worrying about endurance. It’s only needed in long fights but in those fights it’s well worth it. Take it and six-slot it with rechrg redux, though it’s got a 10 minute recharge so it’s impossible to make it perma.

Focused Accuracy is an interesting beast. It’s very expensive – 1.25eps, which almost breaks even with fully slotted Stamina – but turning it on is like putting 1 acc in all your powers, and for each additional tohit buff enhancement you get even more. With 6 end redux in it, its cost drops to 0.4, which is reasonable but if you want to reliably hit +4/5 then you’ll need at least 1 tohit buff in it, which means it’s gonna cost you 0.45eps.

It’s definitely possible to run it all the time but you’ll be sacrificing damage for it (due to lack of endurance). I plan to use it as a semi-situational, i.e. unless all mobs are purple I’m not touching it. However, I still don’t have it so I don’t know if it’ll work out.



Well, that’s about it for the guide. Hopefully you found some useful information here.

I’d like to thank all the people who played and tested fire tankers before me and provided tons of useful information to all who cared to read. And also to Joe Chott for creating the excellent CoH Planner that makes planning a build a snap.

Last thing, here is a link to another Feiry Aura guide. (Never read just one guide when preparing to start a build)

(I couldn’t find any good Stone Melee guides, so if anyone knows of one, post a link here or send me PM.)

Awesome. I was wondering when it'll be updated. Somebody send Cuppa a cookie.

Excellent post. I think it should be stickied and every potential defender will be well advised to read it

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but now the squishies that have stealth+ss will have no advantage at all.

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The reason why SS got stealth component was because ppl would run past higher level mobs and get attacked even if they were in range of those attacks for a whole of 1 second, it's totally reasonable for that stealth component not to apply in PvP (note that SS doesn't actually make u graphically transluscent).
What I'm curious about is how would the differences between stealth, invisibility and phase-shift work. I mean invisible ok, so toons become really invisible and it's easier to loose the targeting box on them. Would stealth or phase shift make them partially visible or would they still be totally invisible just won't be as easy to loose the targeting box? Also, what about powers such as steamy mist and shadow fall, both of these have f/x accompanying them, would these be visible?

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I remember Boxhead6177's website before WarCry and Artphobia.

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I remember that site well, I was all over it before CoH even came out.

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I remember EncounterVictim!

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Yeah, two days ago in IP

I remember the first time entering the Shadow Shard.

I remember the first time seeing the Crimson Falls and for the first time regreting that CoH doesn't have water like Lineage 2.

I remember when I saw the Chantry for the first time.

I remember the first time I entered The Storm Palace and beheld its dark and chaotic beauty.

I remember trembling in fear when I saw the groups of elementals poised to strike down my squishy controller at any moment.

I remember seeing the Storm Palace under constant bombarement from unknown forces.

I have a few questions (blaster related):

1. For Nova and Inferno
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Nova - 2.7778 Smashing + 5.5556 Energy + 4.1667 Energy * 0-2 (25% chance of * 0, 37.5% chance of * 1, 37.5% chance of * 2)
....
Inferno - 2.7778 Smashing + 5.5556 Fire + 0.5556 Fire * 0-10 + 4.1667 Fire * 0-2 (25% chance of * 0, 37.5% chance of * 1, 37.5% chance of * 2)


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Am I correct to understand that they both have a kind of a critical hit, but instead of just having a chance to double the damage, they also have a chance to do additional 50% damage? Also, how were these numbers calculated, did you actually used Nova/Inferno 40-50 times in a row and watched for criticals or have they been posted by a dev?

2. All fire powers have something like this "0.2778 Fire * 0-5", as I understand it this refers to the additional DoT damage that all fire powers do. What I'm unclear about is why it's "* 0-5", instead of "* 5"? Does that mean that there are not always 5 ticks, and sometimes there could be less? (I never played fire blaster so excuse the noob question ).

3. Inferno, in addition to the fire and the smashing damage also has the DoT damage component "0.5556 * 10", which of course is actually 5.556. This indicates that it almost doubles its initial damage over 10 seconds, and w/o criticals it has brawl index of almost 14 over 10 seconds, whereas Blizzard (which suppose to be highest damage) has BI of less than 11 over 25 seconds. I knew Fire powers had potent AoE powers but this seems a bit too much.

Hmmm, I was going to say "what's the big deal w/ not being able to attack for few seconds, after all you're tankers, you're suppose to absorb the damage, let the scrappers dish it out" but if you can't taunt in that period then it's really screwed up. It's one thing to prevent tankers from contributing their puny damage for few seconds it's another to completely prevent them from doing their job as tankers.

As far as the endurance drop - isn't it still hell of a lot better to loose a fixed amount of end rather than all of it like it was w/ Rage 2.0? All you need to do is pop a blue before it drops and you won't even notice it.

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How about making the health bar go purple on anyone's name who has a hold/sleep/ect on them so we can easily see who is being held in the Team Buff Window?

SNIP

Also it would be nice to have the health bar of anyone who CAN NOT be healed (like MoG players) grey. I'm always freaking out trying to heal them when their health drops. :P

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I know it's a bit OT but these are really great suggestions, I would definitely like to see something like that.

@Majik

Sweet sig man

I'm surprised this is not a more active thread. Anyway, I'm gonna be doing some tests of controller pools but only few at a time. Here are the first 2 powers from the Stone Mastery pool.

Couple of notes: I haven't tested for accuracy because first I'm not sure how to do that second, I had Tactics on so that would skew the results. Also, for damage I tested against even con (45) Nemesis Hussars and Jaegers, and Rikti Conscript and Communication Officer, for all but Jaeger the damage was the same, just the same I decide to post Jaeger damage, it's in the brakets. Both powers didn't have any enhancements, and finally, all numbers (except damage) are approximate.

Hurl Bolder

Ranged, High DMG (Smash), Foe Knockback
Description: You are able to tear up a chunk of ground beneath your feet and Hurl it at an enemy. This attack is close ranged, deals moderate damage, and can knock foes back. Damage: High, Recharge: Moderate.
Enhancements: Reduce Endurance, Reduce Recharge, Enhance Accuracy, Enhance Damage, Enhance Knockback, Enhance Range

Damage: 89.53 (102.96)
Range: 40ft.
Recharge: 10s
Activation: 2-3s
Endurance Cost: 13

Fissure

Close (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG (Lethal/Smash), Foe Knockback, Disorient
Description: This powerful stomp can cause a seismic disturbance. This will crack the Earth itself and send a Fault towards targeted foe. Affected targets take moderate damage and maybe thrown in the air and possibly disoriented. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Slow.
Enhancements: Reduce Endurance, Reduce Recharge, Enhance Accuracy, Enhance Damage, Enhance Knockback, Enhance Range

Damage: 26.85 (30.88)
Range: 30ft.
Recharge: 30s
Activation: 1-2s
Endurance Cost: 15

Just to add my 2inf. Indomitable Will from Controller's Psionic Mastery also provides Psionic Defence, it's recharge time is 6 minutes and it lasts 90 seconds.

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I get the feeling what is ment by EpicATs accessible to everyone, is that they won't require you have a level 50. Somehting like having a certain number of TFs done or a special TF...

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The funny thing is that even if new Epic ATs won't require lvl50 character but rather the completion of some TFs or some such thing, there will still be ppl who will find a reason to whine about that. I can just imagine: "OMG OMG The devs want us to complete a TF against Carnies, they are so hard, I can't possibly finish it. You nerfed me devs!"

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I think that by "smoothly," Poz is saying that the enhancements aren't going to skip from 33% to 16% over a single level gap. The enhancements will probably provide a smooth progression, maybe SOs give a 20% boost as level 20, 25% at 21 and full at 22. Likewise, a smooth gradient from level 10 to 20 to go from training to DO to SO.

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Conceptually, this is correct (though the numbers themselves are different). No Enhancement of that particular type needs to actually exist "naturally" at your Exemplar level.

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Could you tell us the numbers?

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That would be braking their "tease but don't give any real infromation" rule

*hides from the devs*