Call Me Awesome
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While my Ice/Elec is still only 31 and a long way from finished there's a few things that don't make sense to me. For one, you're a pretty fair way from the soft cap defensively... my Ice/Elec is actually softcapped to S/L/E/N now at level 31 so I can devote the rest of my build to other things.
From the top you're slotting the Obliteration set which provides Melee defense, yet an Ice tank is positional defense. I snagged 4 Eradication (3.125% E/N defense per set) and two Scirocco's (10% regen) for my PBAOE attacks and Icicles and grabbed 4 (so far) Mocking Beratement in Taunt for 2.5% S/L defense. I also tossed 4 Kinetic Combat into Charged Brawl for another 3.75% S/L defense (I had them sitting in base storage... if I hadn't I'd have used a set of Smashing Haymaker and been about 2% short of the S/L cap right now). Ah, I just realized you don't have the Steadfast Res/3% Def IO; get it and put it in Tough.
If you're using Aegis in Tough the 3 slot bonus is the one you really want since Fire damage is pretty rare and Cold damage you're at 90% resistance to anyway... and it's even rarer than Fire. I question if you really want to 5 slot Chilling Embrace with Tempered Readiness; I'd also push it considerably earlier in the build.
I tend to prefer the Gift of the Ancients set for defense armors as it's relatively inexpensive and it helps tremendously with endurance.
I understand that you're going for high recharge, but I think you'd do better to shore up your defenses first, then go for the recharge. All that recharge won't help you if you're faceplanted and you'll get more durability out of another 5% S/L defense and another 7% E/N. If you're willing to spend the money you can soft cap your S/L/E/N defense and still keep perma Hasten and perma Hoarfrost; which I assume is what you're after. -
Quote:I hate to say it, but in most cases you should have been able to prevent a team wipe; as you get more experience in tanking and managing aggro you'll start to look on any team member dying as a failure on your part (I know I feel that way when I'm tanking). Yes, sometimes you get teammates doing really stupid things (my SG has a saying, "you can't fix stupid, but you can speed boost it") and if they're off in another area there's nothing even the best tanker can do to save them. Work on managing aggro for the team... it's not easy to do but it is what teams recruit a tanker for.Originally Posted by roborg
ty awsome. about my tank he is on so's and is almost unkillable but i tend to play him more like a scrapper on steroids. he is not a meatshield but is almost unkillable(i was on a team yesterday and after all but i died i saved the day by killing every critter in the area myself
) oh and he has perma rage.
When I'm tanking my first and foremost concern is keeping aggro away from the squishies on the team and clumping them nicely so that the team can AOE them into oblivion. I'm the first one into a group of baddies and move around a bit to gather them then hold them while the rest of the team unloads the pain. When the current group is nearly gone I'll go after the next group. I take it as a personal failure in my job if another teammate dies from mobs I'm supposed to have under control; that means I screwed up somehow.
Here's how I handle things:
First, I jump into the middle of the group of baddies or if they're spread a bit I make a quick (and I mean QUICK) circle around them and end up behind the group so that I'm looking at the baddies and the rest of the team is beyond them. Like this... Team -> Baddies -><- Me. This way the baddies are all looking at me and have their backs to the team while I can see all the mobs and the team so I know if I suddenly need to snag any extra mobs. If any of the mobs turn away from me to the rest of the team I see it instantly and can toss a taunt or ranged attack on that mob to recapture it's attention before it can kill anyone on the team. Only after I've established aggro do I start attacking and the whole time I'm fighting I'm also watching everything around me in case I need to shift targets or deal with another previously unaggroed group that the blaster's suddenly tossed a fireball into.
If you learn how to manage aggro while still contributing to the combat then you'll start having all the teams you could want... good tankers are scarce. Being a really good tanker isn't easy but it's rewarding and players will remember. Polish your skills and you'll find that nearly every time if you stay upright so will most everyone else. If the rest of the team dies then it will take MUCH longer to finish the group/room/mission. Keeping everyone alive will mean you're getting XP faster and moving through missions faster so it's actually a selfish playstyle if you look at it that way; keep your minions healthy so they'll kill the mobs faster. -
I'm amazed that the monkeys lasted as long as they did; I would have expected them to get the hammer in a week; not last for over a month that they did. I thought they got crushed with issue 18 and Going Rogue because I remember thinking it was a good idea to get them gone before the influx of new players with GR.
It was fun for long time vets to get new characters past the early grind we've all done so many times before but it was terrible for new players. Those early levels serve a purpose in teaching the game and how to play their character. -
The build should work well; it is likely to be expensive though. For example I haven't bought a Membrane HO in over a year but they were running around 80 million then. I haven't bought or sold a Cyto recently either; as a long time Hami raider from issue 4 to 8 and running the STF probably over 100 times I have loads of HO's in base storage but I have noticed that the more desirable ones have been climbing in value.
I still would probably put the 4 GotA together into Weave for the 1.8 bonus endurance. You could also steal a slot from Tactics and Build Up to get the 7.5% recharge from the Mocking Beratement set.
There's room for improvement, but without scrapping a bunch of the IO's you currently have the build is a good compromise. Again, looking at Health I'm kind of iffy on burning the slots; if it were me I'd probably stick one of the uniques in there and the other into Physical Perfection. The recovery bonus from Miracle you probably won't notice with all the recovery in your build. Keeping the two Numina IO's will drop your regen by 15%, but it'll free up two slots to use elsewhere. Or, you could drop one slot and go with 2 Numina and a common heal; maintain your current regen and free a slot for another power.
As I mentioned I haven't checked prices on HO's recently but I'd be surprised if Cytos and Membranes were available for less than 100 million each and I wouldn't be overly surprised if they were 150 mil or more. The GotA 7.5% recharge hovers around 200 million depending on level, although you can buy them with hero merits every 4 days. (They cost 2 hero merits and you can earn one every other day by running tips) Conservatively I'd estimate your build there excluding what you already have at something approaching 1.5 billion; from what you've said it sounds kind of like a long term project. I would prioritize on the IO's first and shoehorn in the Cytos as you acquire them. I'd pull the Membranes and just go with common recharge; they aren't buying you anywhere near enough for their price tag.
In any case if you can get it built you'll be up for high end challenges. The ITF should be pretty easy for you; the STF you'll need either the right inspiration loadout or team support to tank the tower buffed Lord Recluse.
Your thought on using a second build for an exemp build is a good one, CMA's second build maintains the S/L softcap all the way down to level 25 and doesn't loose IO bonuses entirely until level 16. I designed it around a level 25 exemplar so there are no set IO's higher than 27 in the build. At 25 it has ~85% S/L resistance, 45% S/L def and 30% E/N/F/C. That makes for a pretty unkillable tanker on the mid level TF's. It's designed to be used below level 30... above 30 I use the main build. I would concentrate on finishing your primary build first before doing anything other than an SO exemp build though; you're going to need the money. -
Quote:There have been just too many massive exploits in AE; the Monkey Farms I mentioned earlier were leveling from 1-12 in FIVE MINUTES on normal XP... just how insane would it have double XP on top of that?Originally Posted by Donna_
Wish they would allow AE content to get Dxp, so people level faster than usual, big whoop.
With those Monkey farms you could, with a little dedication and an AOE heavy mentor, level from 1-50 in not much more than an hour or two. -
Quote:It won't have an appreciable effect on performance; and when you have something up full screen it won't matter anyway. I've used photos that were 8MB+ in size and never noticed any problems.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, I have 8 GB of RAM, that's why I decided to go with Windwos 7 x64. I think that should be plenty, so that means I can keep my wallpaper, right?
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I'm currently working on an Ice/Electric tanker; level 31 right now and softcapped to S/L/E/N damage. It's quite sturdy and offers considerable AOE damage at the expense of limited Single Target damage. Being Ice Armor it grabs and holds aggro extremely well; it does an outstanding job of managing team aggro.
Durability wise it's below Shield and certainly Invuln (and Stone post 32 naturally) but it has plenty for the job. While it's soft capped defensively anything that manages to get through the defense is going to hurt since it lacks a layer of resistance to back up the defense and Fire using mobs will chew it up badly. Fortunately Fire is a rare damage type and even more rare when it comes in significant amounts.
I'm also working on a Dark/Elec tanker at 24; with some IO investment I can see it getting really tough but right now it's a bit squishy. I rolled up both tankers because I wanted to try something completely different than I'd played before and couldn't decide between Dark and Ice... so I rolled one of each. Obviously the Ice tanker being in the 30's and fully IO'd out is superior to the SO'd Dark tanker at 24 but given equal investment and level I can see the Dark outperforming the Ice.
Dechs, what are you shooting for on a Dark tanker? 45% S/L def? I assume we want to punch recharge and tohit for the benefit of Dark Regen as well. Frankly I haven't worked up a build for that tank yet; I'm still at the testing and experiment stage before deciding on a final build. -
I have to say after leveling three scrappers and one brute to 50 that I really prefer scrappers. What bothers me about the brute is the constant go-go-go playstyle in order to maintain Fury and keep the damage up. That means that I can't call a halt to recover end/hp without throwing away my damage and it takes a group or two before I'm cooking on damage again. It's too much of a yo-yo for my liking. I gave it a try with a Fire/WP brute and he was ok but my scrappers offer more consistent performance.
If I'm looking for durability then I'm running a tanker. -
Quote:I would tend to doubt it, every other DXP weekend we've had has excluded AE so I imagine this will be the same. Heck, can you imagine the carnage if we'd had DXP including AE while the Monkey Farms were active a couple of months ago? It's only a matter of time until someone finds another drastic XP exploit in AE along the same lines.Originally Posted by NiteKilla
Is there gonna be double xp this weekend in the AE missions? I heard there will be double xp only for regular missions.
(In case you missed it there was a bug in AE that would allow you to populate a map with powerless, 0 XP mobs and Rikti Monkeys... and the underling class Rikti Monkeys were giving boss level XP. It was absolutely the most rediculous leveling I've ever seen... a brand new level 1 reaching 12 in less than 5 minutes; 24 in about 10-15 minutes and level 35 in about 30 minutes. Terrible for the health of the game and certainly needed to be fixed but it was glorious skipping dull, dozens of times repeated lower levels for long time veterans. I think I ran 7-8 new characters who's powersets I wanted to try up into the 20's during that time.) -
As you can see there's a pretty diverse bunch of answers. I've leveled 16 characters to 50 so far and the time's been pretty diverse.
My first, my namesake Inv/Stone tanker took roughly 250 hours back in issue 3; mostly tanking for large teams. That tends to rack up XP pretty quickly.
My latest, my Shield/Fire tanker Call Me Frank, took ~80 hours again mostly on large teams. In between those two I've had anything from 25 hours (special case involving some AE farming... bad monkey, no banana) to around 350 hours for a somewhat neglected controller. The early times aren't representative anymore... there used to be a black hole in the late 30's where leveling almost came to a halt. Now, on average, most characters should level 2-3 times as fast as they did a few years ago.
It also varies with player experience; a new player may take 400+ hours to reach 50 while a veteran may take the same character there in 100 hours or less.
Quote:If you're tanking for large, fast moving teams and get a reputation as a solid, competent tanker then I wouldn't be surprised to see you get a level every 2-3 hours most of the way from 30 on. If you're tanking TF's then things will probably be quicker... once you reach 35+ running an ITF should net you at least a level per run, probably more. Get on a Manticore TF now and you should finish it with at least one level, probably about a level and a half.ok new question. how many hours on average does it take to get from 31 to 50? the toon i have at 31 is a inv/ss tank that i team on 8 man teams all the time. and i want to make it clear in case there are any misconceptions. i am not trying to bum rush it to 50, i just want to know on average how long it takes. on average is the key word.
If you build it right that Inv/SS tanker should be getting really good by 30. By the time it matures with some IO investment you can have a character who's nearly unkillable; just short of a Granite armor tanker without the negatives. I imagine at this point you're on SO enhancements? Just by playing and selling your drops at Wentworths you should have enough inf to get really close to a soft capped build by the time you reach 40. The key, of course, is building it right. Even on straight SO's you can build a pretty dang tough tanker; adding appropriate IO bonuses to the mix can get you a nearly indestructible shield for your team. -
The total bill on my 37 Spine/Electric scrapper including the 4 sets of Reactive Armor; 2 sets of Scirocco, 2 sets of Multi Strike, one set of Posi Blast, a set of Doctored Wounds, a Steadfast Res/Def, Karma KB protection and a few miscellaneous other IO's was right around 100 million... I went into the respec with around 110 million and finished up with about 10 million. Most of that was "buy it now" prices, and several I bought crafted because I was lazy. If I'd been patient, bought recipes and salvage and crafted my own I could probably have cut that by about 1/3 - 1/2. Since I have several billion sitting on various alts I tend to be less worried about getting really good deals... I'm sitting down to change this character's build and I want everything NOW instead of waiting.
The last time I bought a set of Smashing Haymaker was about a month ago... I think I paid under 100k per recipe and they don't use rare salvage. In this day and age that's pretty bargain basement.
Quote:No, it isn't really significant, it's just that it's a really cheap set that provides something of use. The regen is actually incidental. Yes, it's somewhat useful and that's what gets the set the nod over other cheap choices but it's hardly a make or break thing. I'm really curious where you uber-folks keep this semi-mythical 'bargain basement' full of IOs that everyone is demanding, to soft-cap their builds. Gaining some more Defense would be nice. On the other hand, I find it slightly ironic that you've suggested that the +Regen in LotG is irrelevant, but the +Regen in Pounding Slugfest is significant...
Actually you can slot HO's at 47Quote:So, they don't go 'poof', you just can't slot HOs unless you're 50... and they'll be fine, down to L30, pinch really bad at L15, and leave you wondering what happened to you, when you run the 'Return to Outbreak' in the Ouroboros intro. Thankfully, I've already done That one once. 
In practice the HO's will get reduced on the same schedule as SO's do; by about 20 they'll be multi-aspect DO's and in the single digits they'll be muti-aspect TO's.
Looking over your live build I would toss the four Gift of the Ancients into Weave... fortunately they're all different IO's. I'd pull the Impervium Armor, the Steadfast Res/End and 3 of the Titanium Coating. Check prices on the Titanium Coating verses the Steadfast Res/End and see which is more valuable.
For now keep the sets of Crushing Impact; they're too valuable to dump and they do give useful bonuses. I would concentrate on getting the Reactive Armor sets, the Mocking Beratement set for Taunt, the Doctored Wounds for Dull Pain and the Eradication for Whirling Hands. If you don't get the Eradication quad (that puppy could easily cost more than all 4 sets of Reactive Armor) you should be able to get this done without putting too huge a bite into your savings. The Mocking Beratement recipes you should be able to get for 10k-50k per recipe and they all use generally inexpensive salvage... baring the insanity that's currently going on in the salvage market. Heck, the last Mocking Beratement recipe I sold went for 20 inf... I generally list stuff that's cheap on the market for 1 inf so it sells fast.
After you have that done I'd buy one Smashing Haymaker set for your last attack and start looking for Cytoskeleton HO's for Invincibility. I'll warn you they're likely to be expensive so you'll probably have to save up. One thing I've been doing is running tip missions for hero merits and buying level 25 Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge. Those seem to reliably sell for 150-250 million crafted and you can buy one every four days. Or, you can run tips on several characters and buy one on each character every four days.
100 million should set you up pretty nicely; as you get new freespecs you may want to pull Crushing Impact sets and change them for Smashing Haymaker to build your S/L defense. I also 6 slot Thunderstrike into a ranged APP power for a nice chunk of E/N defense; on my current build I have 46% S/L def and 44% E/N. On an ITF last night I used Dull Pain once and never had need for Aid Self (I've built for maximum durability so I can tank the tower buffed Lord Recluse unassisted; nothing less powerful is dangerous to me including most Psi AV's. I will admit that the tower buffed LR most assuredly IS dangerous... it takes all my durability and a fair chunk of my inspiration tray to pull off solo tanking him).
If I'm adding things up correctly you should only be tossing 2-3 IO's from your current build to upgrade your IO's. Now getting those Numina & Miracle uniques will be very expensive... I just bought one a couple of days ago and had to pay ~150 million. -
Quote:I don't think I've ever not been able to get a name for a character... sometimes having my first choice unavailable leads me to a bit of creativity and ending up with a much better name than I had originally. Just last week I rolled up an AR/Dev blaster with a military theme named "General Seating". There's also my Fire/EM blaster "Delta Farce" and several others. I've also leveled a Defender based on the stereotype of an empty headed surfer dude wearing sunglasses and a speedo named Bogus Wave. Then there's my Plant/Storm controller based on the old Red Skelton limerick:Originally Posted by all_hell
I don't make a toon until after I have a name picked. If I can't get the name or a derivation thereof, I just don't make the toon.
I have all my toon slots filled on Freedom atm. Everytime I come up w/ a new name I have to check and see if there's an existing name I like less and then I delete that toon.
So, yeah, I am hoarding t3h gud namz
Algie saw the Bear.
The Bear saw Algie.
The Bear was bulgie.
The bulge was Algie.
He's a huge model 7' tall bear named Algie's Bear. -
Quote:I'd have to strongly disagree here; dropping Tough cuts your S/L resistance from the 90% cap to just shy of 70%... a massive reduction in durability. Lacking Weave likewise drops your defense significantly. Dropping Fighting will result in a substantially weaker tanker. It's the difference between a tanker that struggles and constantly needs heals on the ITF and one who's HP bar literally never even moves. I consider it one step down from mandatory on an Invuln.Originally Posted by Whataguy
Personal preferences here:
I would drop the Fighting and Leadership pool powers (saving 5 power choices) and add Hasten, Energy Punch, Unstoppable, Laser Beam Eyes, and Stun. The endurance savings alone from dropping Tough, Weave, Assault, and Tactics will more than cover the increased burn from using Hasten, and frankly having Build Up, Energy Transfer, and Total Focus up more often gives you more bang for the buck. It is also handy to fire off Conserve Power right after Hasten triggers.
I was on an ITF a few days ago with my Fire/Elec blaster and we had an Invuln tanker as the main tank. He lacked Fighting and I watched him drop 5 times in the TF. He had all the key powers except Fighting and had a considerable amount of IO bonuses; still he was dropping repeatedly to foes who don't even make my Invuln's health move at all.
Leadership I personally don't generally take on a tanker but Fireheart wants to keep it and there are arguments in favor of it.
RPD can indeed come early, but Res Energies can delay until there's a free slot and Res Elements can just as well be skipped altogether; if you're getting it get it late. Are you using your tanker as a team tank or solo? EM's lack of AOE and the slowness of it's attacks limit the mitigation value it has on a team. The mitigation you're talking about is also exclusively single target; on a large team you'll be managing the aggro of up to 17 foes at once.Quote:And if you having trouble due to your slightly reduced defenses, hit Unstoppable and win the fight in the next two minutes. Laser Beam Eyes is a great for runners and single target pulling. Energy Punch gets no love but it outclasses Boxing and has better debuffs, and Stun (probably the most underused tanker attack in the game) is great for Sappers and other annoying targets.
I would move the passive resists up further in the build, too (RPD early, ResEl + ResEn in the 20s).
Due to the sheer awesomeness of Energy Melee's upper-end damage output, I haven't had much trouble tanking without Tough/Weave or Aid Self, especially if you are using EM's stun tools for mitigation.
Building a tank the way you're suggesting will work quite well for a solo tanker, but it will result in a markedly inferior tanker for large teams. Because of this I cannot in good conscience recommend it. -
Quote:Just for comparison I'm running the current settings:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
So people tell me, but I can, speaking specifically for myself. I can't give you an exact framerate, but I like to keep mine stuck at 60FPS at all times. As soon as that drops by even 10FPS, I can see it. The motions don't look as smooth.
I've actually confirmed this many times. I have +showfps bound to my plus/equals key, so for a while I'd hit that every time I suspected my framerate was slowing down, and sure enough it was down to about 45, and already that bothered me intensely. I really, really want to keep as high a framerate as possible (up to 60FPS, anyway) at as much of the time as I can manage. Unfortunately, with how slap-dash so many of the game's locations are, perfect framerate is impossible, but the few the locations this happens, the better.
To specify, the quality I really want includes:
*Native resolution
*Vertical Sync
*Anisotropic filter of at least x4
*High model quality (I keep that at 200%)
*Normal world detail (100%)
*Very High textures for both world and players
*Particle count where it is (50 000, I think)
*Environment and Water reflections to a notch below maximum
*SOME level of dynamic shadows, irrespective of quality.
*Physics Quality at ultra high (not recommended with Agia PhysX, which no longer exists)
FSAA I can take or leave at such high resolution, I don't want or need Bloom, Depth of Field or Ambient Occlusion. The rest of the settings aren't important.
1920x1080 resolution
FSAA - 2x
Environmental Reflections - 1 down from max
Water Reflections - 1 down
Adv. Shadows - disabled
Shadow Quality - 1 down
Occlusion - off
Particle Quality - High
World/Character detail - Very High (maxed)
Detail 100%
Particle amount - maxed
Ansitropic - 4x
Bloom - Off
With those settings I typically stay between 50-60 (vsync cap) fps most areas, in really busy battles with lots of effects popping off I drop to 35-40 fps. I find it quite playable except for the areas where server lag becomes a problem... the ITF for example. With those same settings you should see a little better result due to your faster CPU and graphics.
Since my day job is in video production believe me I can see framerate issues... I can easily tell the difference between 60fps and 45fps and anything with lots of movement really bothers me if it drops to 30fps. While video is generally listed as "30 frames per second" each frame is actually composed of 2 fields so allowing for that and the fact that video isn't QUITE an even 30 (29.97 fps actually) what you're used to seeing on TV is 59.94 fps.
I've played with vsync on and with it off... yes I get higher framerates with it off but I also get occasional tearing of the image which bothers me FAR more than a lower framerate. -
Quote:Truthfully with your CPU and graphics card I don't think you'll see all that much impact with a 1920x1080 other than you'll have more real estate and the game will look better. Maybe you'll loose 5 fps; but if it bothers you just tweak your game settings a bit. One of the biggest performance hogs is Occlusion (which, IMO, looks like @#!! anyway); I turn it completely off. I like a crisp, sharp image so any option that adds blur (like depth of field for example) also gets canned. Water effects don't start being a big hog until you max them out, I run one notch below max there and on Shadows as well.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
And the comedy continues. I swapped the 19'' 1280x1024 for a 19'' 1440x900... Only to find it has no HDMI port. It's just VGA, and my card doesn't have a VGA slot. And no, I am NOT using an adaptor. That's just EH!
So I'm throwing my hands in the air and letting my father pick whatever he feels is decent, as long as it has a fast pixel response time. I just KNOW he'll pick a 1920x1080, and then I'll be chugging my games like I downgraded my video. I just know it.
*edit*
Gotta' say one thing, though - going from 19'' back to my old 17'' makes everything look... Small. Guess all of a day was enough to make me used to seeing everything big
There's little chance that your CPU and graphics were running full bore on your old monitor so you should see little change in performance. I get nearly the exact same fps hit in the black holes on multiple machines; it doesn't seem to matter much what resolution I'm using. -
Quote:I don't know what your current budget is, but I just last week slotted out a Spine/Elec scrapper with 4 sets of Reactive Armor for right around 1-1.5 million per IO. Don't think you need level 40 IO's... using level 25 instead costs you a whopping..... 2.5% resistance. Good prices are to be found in the 30-38 range; those will frequently cost a fraction of what a level 40 costs.Originally Posted by Fireheart
Thanks for the feedback, CMA.
I'm familiar with much of what you suggest from your excellent guide, but I do have questions.
I'll concede that +5% S/L/E/N Defense is a fine trade for +5% HPs - If one can find and afford the Extremely Popular and hard to get (expensive) Reactive Armor. I didn't consider this to be an 'ultimate final' build, but more of one that can get me slotted and back in the game (instead of 'naked') relatively quickly.
You don't have a chain without including Boxing? It's been awhile since I played my Stone/EM tanker, retired shortly after the ET nerf, but I don't remember it being that bad. In any case, the slotting of Smashing Haymaker & Pounding Slugfest nets you a decent chunk of S/L defense along with 8% regen at bargain basement prices.Quote:Boxing is in as a replacement for Energy Punch - the equivalence is not exact, but if I Must take Boxing, I may as well use it. I don't have room for an unused Boxing and the Devs have slowed down Energy Melee to the point where I need every attack, in order to keep the chain running. Recharge is not the limiter, it's animation-time - he build HAS +50% Haste already.
Well if you have the IO's then that's to the good. I'd be tempted to check prices on the Celerity and the Unbound Leap stealth procs; you may come out ahead selling the Celerity and buying an Unbound Leap.Quote:Super-Jump with a full Jump IO in it is over-slotted for jump-speed. Slotting the half-n-half Jump/End is... less irrelevant. Besides, I already have that IO, switching to a plain Jump would actually cost me money. The same is true for the Celerity +Stealth, though I appreciate your suggestion. Sprint is 'toggle-stealth', since I use Power Slide to get around.
Hami-O's work all the way to level 1 just like SO's do. Yes, they're degraded in effectiveness just like SO's are if you exemp far enough but they never stop working. The game treats a HO exactly like two or three SO's in a power for exemp purposes. IO's will be degraded in the same way by exemplar below a certain level so you're not buying anything there.Quote:A question about the Cyto-HO slotting: How does that react to Exemplaring and Ouroboros? I had understood HOs would cease functioning if my level dropped too low? I do know the ~33% boost gets Savaged if I drop below level 30-ish?
If Leadership works for you then great; I just tend to see it as marginal on a tank. I'm a big believer in it on Defenders who get the most return and it's quite nice on Controllers as well. Since Tankers get so much less benefit for the same end cost I tend to go with something else. Of course if you have a regular team who all run the toggles then that's something else again; a few years ago my SG had a 7 man team of Controllers, Defenders and Blasters all with the Leadership powers and steamrolled everything including Giant Monsters... the GM version of Jurassik only took 30 seconds to drop.Quote:Ah, the much-maligned Leadership... which protects ME from Confuse, Fear, Taunt/Placate, and Perception/To-hit Debuffs. On top of protecting me, if gives a little more omph to my damage and to-hit. And just happens to do the same for my comrades. I rather like Leadership.
As for Build-Up, I agree it's not very useful on most Tankers and not that great for ordinary attacks. However, other Tankers don't have Energy Transfer or Total Focus. These attacks were so formidable that the Devs felt compelled to neuter them (Yes, I'm still angry about it). I used to be able to BU-ET-TF-ET and destroy targets, but these days I can only manage BU-ET-TF and those attacks are less useful than they once were - which is why Build-Up is so 'late' in the build and why it only merits 2 slots, instead of 4-5, like it used to.
However, I still want ET to 'never' miss and be available as often as practical. So I'm a little fanatical about Accuracy and still concerned with Damage and Recharge. I'm sorry, but if I have to invest the animation-time of Energy Transfer in a battle, then 'adequate', or 'good' accuracy is not sufficient. The level 40 IOs I have slotted in there right now (matching the build) were not all that expensive - I paid 100K or less for each recipe.
About the accuracy issue with ET; unless you're routinely facing +4 mobs you're likely going to be at the tohit cap for most everything you face with the SH/PS slotting between the accuracy slotting and the tohit buff in Invincibility, especially if you're running Tactics. You may find it worthwhile to snag the Kismet 6% tohit IO (mislabeled as +accuracy but it's most assuredly tohit) to toss into CJ. Cranking the numbers even against +4 mobs you'll have roughly an 87% chance to hit them with the Smashing Haymaker/Pounding Slugfest combo. Against +3 mobs you're at 118% tohit, effectively capped at 95%. About the only exceptions would be mobs with defense buffs like Nemesis hopped up on Vengeance. I use that slotting on CMA and I only miss when I pop a yellow because I really need to connect.
That's up to you of course; I actually don't have Hasten on my Invuln either because I can't find a power I want to drop for it... and a slot. How many of the IO's on the Mid's build are currently on the tanker? That will make a difference in what I'd suggest doing as you really don't want to just toss anything of value if you don't have to and I don't think you really want to burn a bunch of respecs just pulling off IO's. When issue 9 hit and IO's came into the game CMA had almost 60 HO's on him... it took 6 respecs to change most of them out for IO's and I burned 2 more with issue 13 getting to, basically, the build I have today.Quote:In order for Hasten to compete with the +50% haste I have from these IOs, it would require slots that I don't have to spare and Attention. to see that it was clicked on time (or the sacrifice of my current Auto'd filler-attack). By the same token, Laser Beam Eyes would also require slots I can't spare, to be at all effective. Currently, I'm making do with my two Veteran sticks.
I'll look into acquiring the Reactive Armors, then decide where to get the slots from, Taunt, or Invincibility, I guess.
Thanks for the input.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I'm still somewhat uncertain about burning 3 slots on Health; and Physical Perfection seems like overkill with both of the recovery uniques and good endred slotting. CMA does have both uniques but doesn't have PP and with the Cardiac alpha I cannot make my blue bar move. It didn't move a whole lot before I got the Cardiac either. Of course you know your endurance use; do you already have the uniques? Slotting 4 Gift of the Ancients in Tough Hide and Weave will go a long way toward solving endurance issues as will getting the Atlas Medallion and Portal Jockey. That will give you an extra 17 points of endurance to play with. -
Hmm, depending on the time I'm up for it. I've three slotted incarnate 'trollers; Mind/Kin, Ill/Rad and Fire/Rad. The Ill/Rad has been through both incarnate TF's several times, the others are capable although that Fire/Rad might have problems with Battle Maiden.
Come to think of it I believe only 2 of my 50's haven't at least unlocked the incarnate slot and only 3 of them aren't slotted. -
I actually find it somewhat of a toss up which set is better at times. The MB set gives more recharge and an endurance buff along with some F/C def but less S/L defense. The Zinger gives higher S/L defense, a regen bonus, damage bonus and a damage proc at the cost of some recharge, the end bonus and the F/C defense.
Which is the better set? That depends on the rest of the build. On my four level 50 tankers (well, 3 since one is long retired and untouched since issue 12) I have the MB set on two and the Zinger on CMA. Of course one concern is that the MB set is considerably cheaper... actually it's about the same as SO enhancements. -
I'll give you my Cliffs notes from playing an Elec/SS tanker on test during the closed beta when it was ported to tanks.
First, this was a level bumped character... created and then bumped straight to 50... so I was dealing with a pure SO build because I was too lazy to copy IO's over from live. I was also learning the character at 50 instead of learning it as I leveled up so that also makes a difference.
First, the good. The resists were very good; the heal/regen power and the end drain/recovery power were both very nice. The damage aura worked quite well in holding aggro and contributed considerable damage output. All in all it was competent.
In my testing I ran a series of radio missions with a variety of enemies... Carnies, Council, Malta & Nemesis were the ones I chose to give a good cross section of what a high level tanker would be expected to face. I set the difficulty to +2/x8 to simulate what you'd be facing tanking for a team.
I found that Council and Malta were no issue at all; although the Galaxy bosses could hurt with their negative damage. As you'd expect the Sappers were a complete joke; the set is, for all practical purposes, immune to end drain. Carnies were spotty... Master Illusionists were just plain bad news while Dark Ring Mistresses were just a nuisance aside from their debuff. The Steel Strongmen were a big problem since their debuff would usually hit and it lasts a small fraction of forever. Nemesis fell in somewhere between Council and the Carnies in terms of difficulty.
As a control I ran an old, SO only enhanced version of CMA through the same type of missions with the same settings. Neither had any problems with Council of course; although the energy/negative/psi was somewhat worse for CMA while the S/L mobs were worse for the Electric tank. Overall I'd give Invuln the edge here.
Facing Malta it was a different story altogether. The Sappers that the Elec could completely ignore were a major concern for the Invuln. The other mobs were easier for the Invuln to handle with it's def and hard capped S/L resist but that was more than made up for by the Elec's complete immunity to the Sappers.
Moving on to Carnies and the Invuln came out on top in the comparison; the higher defense made up for the lower exotic resists. Nemesis was a clear win for the Invuln as well; they're almost all S/L damage and even leaving aside the superior defense Invuln also has about 12% more S/L resistance.
The bottom line was that in most cases I felt squishier with the Electric than the Invuln, with Malta being the big exception. All of this, of course, was comparing a base, SO enhanced Invuln with a base, SO enhanced Elec. Adding IO bonuses to that Electric tank to bring it to, or close to anyway, the S/L soft cap would get you a phenomenally capable tanker, probably up with a soft capped Invuln. -
I would suggest some reslotting. The Titanium Coating isn't doing much for you; you'd be much better served by 4 Reactive Armor... that gives you bonuses that are quite useful. The tiny HP boost in the Titanium Coating set isn't helping you nearly as much as the extra defense RA gives.
I'd 5 slot Dull Pain with Doctored Wounds for the recharge bonus; it's considerably cheaper than the Numina/Miracle frankenslot you have there now. I'd also steal slots from Boxing; it really isn't worthy of slotting out.
Unyielding could use one more slot and a set of RA. Super Jump I'd just stick with a common jump; you aren't using it in combat so the endred in the springfoot is fairly pointless.
Whirling Hands slotting is good; be aware that the Eradication quad is pretty expensive if you don't already have it though.
Invincibility is ok, but if you can swing it 3 Cytoskeleton HO enhancements will max out all aspects of the power and save you a couple of slots to boot. You loose the minor regen and tiny HP boost of LotG but you gain a couple of slots, better endred, better defense and better tohit buff.
RPD and Tough again I'd drop the Titanium for Reactive for the reasons I gave above. The way you've slotted Tough Hide is valid; I tend to go with 4 Gift of the Ancients myself for the added endurance... that's much more of an issue for most of my tankers than another 10% regen. Tactics is fine; although I rarely take Leadership on a tanker. I would probably only put a maximum of 3 slots into it though; there's just other places I'd rather have slots. Frankly I'd snag Aid Other/Aid Self instead of Leadership; it'll help your durability more. A 40% heal every 10 seconds is a really nice thing when it all turns pear shaped.
My personal thought is that Build Up is a low priority power on a tanker; I haven't built one yet that I couldn't find at least 2-3 other powers I wanted more... after I'd already run out of power choices. There's nothing wrong with it, I just don't find room on my tanks.
Energy Transfer really could use better slotting. It's ok as a frankenslot but you're using some fairly expensive IO's in that frankenslot and getting nothing of value out of them. I'd go with my standby of 4 Smashing Haymaker and a pair of Pounding Slugfest; it's cheap, gives you S/L defense and 8% regen while capping damage with good accuracy and decent recharge.
Looking at Weave I admit it's a valid choice, I'd still go with 4 Gift of the Ancients instead myself.
I'm not sure I'd use 4 slots in Health either; I understand what you're after; I just question if the slot investment is worth the outcome. Also, I notice the Celerity Stealth in Sprint... do you already have the IO? If not Sprint will also take the Unbounded Leap Stealth and it's considerably cheaper.
I can understand what you're going for, I do think you'd end up with a more durable tanker by adding more defense though. Defense also gives you considerably more benefit out of your regeneration since it gives you more time between taking damage for your regen to work.
I'd also consider adding Hasten if you're looking for more recharge, personally in place of BU. I would also give some thought to a ranged attack from your APP; it makes aggro management much easier and it gives a massive multiplier to taunt's effectiveness if you're range tanking something.
I've teamed with Invuln tankers built along the same lines as yours and they've always been considerably less durable than CMA. I've no doubt your tanker is effective, however you could drastically improve your durability from where it is. You're taking about 3 times as much damage as I do with your defenses at 32% instead of 45%. In most situations this won't matter since Invuln is more than tough enough out of the box. You'd notice the difference in things like the ITF, STF, Incarnate TF's and the like though. -
Quote:Sure; I think GM's have MAG 50 protection though so you'd need either a lot of recharge and duration slotting in confuse or multiple players to pull it off. Since confuse powers generally have longer durations out of the box it's much easier to get enough duration to stack up considerable MAG than for many other controls.Originally Posted by Polypro Ninja
Setting: High Park, Kings Row, Virtue Server
So, as I was running around, I encountered a Winter Lord and 3 Clockwork Paladins all in the same area. The Paladins were in the same group and the Winter Lord was where the initial Perez Park gate used to be.
I was talking to my SG and someone same across this question: Would it be possible to confuse the Winter Lord enough to attack the 3 Paladins? O.o lol
Back in issue 8 I once confused one of the Monster DE in the Hive with my Mind/Kin going full blast (and buffed by a bunch of AM's) so it is possible, just difficult. -
Quote:I had a lower end pair of 21" Samsung Syncmaster that were 1600x900; they frankly never really looked that good. I replaced them when one of them died after a year and a half with Asus VE245 24" monitors (1920x1080) and it was a drastic improvement.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The "black holes" are mostly what I'm worried about, since they tend to be pretty prolific. Everyone knows about Cap Au Diable, and about the Praetorian Labs giant rooms, and about the new Warehouse rooms, and about Grandville and so on and so forth. I'm pretty sure those are the result of shoddy level design, as the Grandville framerate death is only from specific locations in specific directions.
There's something about the whole engine in City of Heroes that makes it look worse and run worse than a lot of its contemporaries, and I really don't know what that's about.
Well, I have a Samsung Something monitor at work that's 1440x960, which I think comes out to a net FEWER pixels, but looks a lot better than this one. This one, by the way, has really horrid shadows and blur when I move. I don't know much about LCDs, but I believe it has a very slow dot turn speed, which means that when shapes move across the screen, they blur and leave trails behind. And it's starting to get on my nerves. I'll see about swapping tech.
If that's more than you want to spend at ~$250 per monitor Asus also has a 21" version of the same monitor (VE215 maybe?) that's exactly the same quality at $150. In my experience a cheap monitor isn't worth having; particularly when there's good ones to be had for only a few dollars more. I can attest that there's very little screen lag and blur on both of these Asus monitors; I have both the 21 & 24 versions in my office. They aren't a top of the line $1,000 panel (I do have 3 of those on my editing machine in the studio) by any means but they're certainly acceptable.
Your monitor is one of the most important pieces of the computer; it's what you're going to be staring at the entire time you're in on your machine so a poor one will make a great box look like garbage. This is one area I never skimp on.
Frankly on the subject of the black holes I don't know of a solution... you're going to encounter them and they're going to choke your fps. At your current resolution your hardware is really loafing; that's something it should handle in it's sleep. Anyway, as I mentioned I'm running an older quad core CPU with one step down in video cards and I get quite acceptable performance on the order of 50-60 (vsync cap) fps in 90% of the game dropping to 25-30fps in the black holes while running 1920x1080. Since you have faster hardware you should get at LEAST that performance unless you're running a lot higher detail and graphics than I am. -
Quote:It is def to all Types but Psi, just like it says. There are two types of defense in the game, Positional which is Melee/Ranged/AOE and Typed which is S/L/E/N/F/C/Psi. Ice Armor is Typed defense so naturally all of it's powers are typed defense powers. You see the same with positional defense sets... all of Shield's powers for example grant Positional defense and offer no typed defense.Originally Posted by eryq2
It says +def all but psionics. But, it's not affecting Ranged, Melee, or AoE defenses or either NRGs. It's only affecting SnL and down. Fire, Cold, etc.
Does it not supposed to affect ranged, melee, aoe and nrgs? If not, it needs to be reworded and not say +def to all.
There are very few defense powers which grant BOTH typed and positional defenses... pool powers like Weave, Maneuvers, Combat Jumping and Hover do that so they're useful by characters using both kinds of defense. Likewise external buffs like Force Fields, Ice Shields and the like use both kinds, again so that they benefit teammates using either type of defense. -
Quote:While higher resolution will certainly impact performance you have a more powerful card and CPU than I do and I run at 1920x1080 resolution with most of the UM options active. I do leave Occlusion off and a few things a notch or two down but I maintain 40-60fps almost everywhere. If you're lagging at 1280x1024 with that hardware then something's wrong... you're way overkill on hardware for that resolution.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Yesterday, I swapped my old 17'' 1280x1024 LCD for a 19'' 1280x1024 LCD, which has produced a curious result - a larger screen with exactly the same matrix means bigger, and thus much more visible pixels. And that's not a good thing.
I may (hopefully) have the chance to swap this one back for something of a similar size but a higher resolution, but here's the thing: How much will a higher resolution affect my game's performance? Ideally, I want to run the game at the screen's native resolution, and the next step up is probably something like 1600x1200, which... Quite a bit more.
I run a GeForce GTX 285 card with an I7 processor, which permits me pretty good framerate at 1280x1024 with a few Ultra Mode options turned on, but which nevertheless slows down significantly in places, such as Cap Au Diable, the new Praetorian labs, the new Warehouse instances and so forth. So I'm worried that getting a bigger monitor and boosting the game's resolution might have a detrimental effect on the whole game.
There are areas where you run into server side lag; the third mission of the ITF is the poster child for that. It really doesn't matter what hardware you have; you're going to lag in those areas. There's a few "black holes" redside where fps tanks; as I recall a couple of them are in Cap. Everyone complains about those areas... I go from vsync cap of 60fps down to 20fps in some of those areas; and I got the same results before I changed from my 8800GTX to my 275GTX vid card. You're going to get a performance hit in those areas and there's not a lot you can do about it.
I do second the suggestion for a widescreen monitor; I'm using a pair of Asus 24" monitors and love them. They're roughly $250 each and they look really nice. -
Like everyone's been saying the Global channels are your friend in forming/getting teams. I don't play on Victory but I imagine there's probably a good community there on the global channels.
Praetoria is going to be sparsely inhabited on all servers with the possible exception of Freedom & Virtue; most players will be playing Heroside. Unless things are different on Victory than on Guardian & Pinnacle you'll find the population better than 60% hero with the majority of the remainder villain. Pretoria is a distant third; and everyone has to leave Pretoria for hero or villain side at level 20.
On server population unquestionably the top two are Freedom (which has a reputation, somewhat deserved, for attracting immature jerks) and Virtue (the unofficial role player's server, which can on occasion get a bit strange). Following those two are Guardian, Infinity, Champion and Protector in no particular order. These seem to be fairly evenly matched as their position will vary at any given time; their player base must be relatively equivalent.
I spend most of my time on Guardian; although I do have quite a few characters on Pinnacle and most of my villains on Infinity. There's not a huge difference in the players I encounter on any of those servers although I obviously know more players on Guardian than anywhere else. Using the global channels and your looking for team flag you should be able to find good people to play with. Whenever you run into a player you enjoy friend them so you can team with them again. That way you'll build a list of people you know. Also, joining a good SG is another resource. I don't suggest you join one of those prestige farm SG's who are always advertising for members in Atlas but ask the people you enjoy teaming with if you can join their SG. Any SG that will invite random people without teaming with them a time or two first is one you don't want to join.