Call Me Awesome

Fire/Dark Corruptors... it's a sweet combination. We've been working on a team of them lately; with 4 of us in the mid-20's everything's dead in seconds. We alternate Tar Patch and everyone tosses Rain of Fire and Fireball... that kills everything but bosses up to +2 in seconds. One round of everyone tossing Blaze and the boss is gone as well.

Oh, we wants our Parrot Gun my precious, yes we do.

I'd love to have my Fire blaster use wrist cannon instead of lobbing fireballs, and a Parrot Gun for things like Breath of Fire (love the power, HATE the animation) and LRM. Let's not even go into Sonic Blast... I like the set, I hate the yelling attacks.

Unfortunately in the low levels nothing's going to be "bad a**"; you'll need to get some levels and better enhancements before you'll go from ok to coolness. That said some are better than others.

High damage characters tend to be best early; blasters & scrappers tend to be good in the pre-teen levels since they can kill fast. Brutes would classify here also but they'll have more endurance problems. As you progress blasters will start to suffer; they're capable but you'll need to be cautious. With armor sets those with either heals or resistance tend to be toughest early while defense sets really struggle until considerably later.

Durability wise, in the early game (pre-20) your best bets would be Invuln, Fire Armor, Dark Armor, Regen, Electric Armor or Willpower. These tend to be tougher early.

They're still corrupted, the date is reading Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00. The date showing that means that COH Helper can't read the information.

You'll need to uninstall the sound drivers, run Drivesweeper and then reinstall them.

Ack, double post

On my very first mission after the GR launch I got 2 tips from the very first spawn and a third within 5 minutes. Getting tips to drop apparently isn't going to be a challenge.

I've run 4 tip missions so far (limited playtime), they're pretty similar to the generic radio missions but a couple have been on unique maps. They're pretty quick to complete.

Well, I've found this about your mobo and problem. Apparently that code designates an overheated CPU. If that's the case, make sure your CPU's heat sink isn't clogged with junk and that the CPU fan is spinning. If the heat sink's clean and the fan spins then you'll need to look further.

This can get a bit tricky, but my next step after checking the HS/Fan would be removing the heat sink and checking the CPU itself. If there's no sign of any heat damage you can replace the heat sink. I'd check the underside of the CPU also, just pull the little lever next to the socket and it should come out with no effort at all. DON'T touch any of the contacts on the underside!

IMPORTANT:
Before replacing the heat sink get some heat sink paste (Arctic Silver is my favorite but any brand should do, Best Buy probably carries it), scrape off all the old paste and apply a thin coating to the heat spreader (the silver plate on top of the CPU) and replace the heat sink.

From the sounds of things though it sounds like either the mobo or the CPU got fried. It's worth a try checking the heat sink and CPU but it's probably futile.

<edit>
From a glance of HP's website it seems like the onboard video is supposed to automatically disable when you put a PCI Express video card in.

All tanks tend to struggle in the low levels; things improve considerably with Stamina and SO's though. Your build right now doesn't look bad; I would have delayed the Fighting pool until the 20's personally and I'd certainly have taken Haymaker over Punch (Dull Pain at 2, Haymaker at 4) as it does considerably more damage.

You're not going to be killing things very fast with any tanker in that level range; your damage modifier is 20% lower than a blaster and your low level attacks aren't exactly crushing damage dealers. Still, replacing Punch with Haymaker will improve things and Knock Out Blow will improve them more.

SS seems to be built around Rage, so look for your damage to improve considerably once you get it. I do admit that my knowledge of SS is secondhand since it's a set I haven't ever played.

You may also need to have the install program "run as administrator", right click on the install program, select "run as administrator" from the drop down menu.

In general I consider a Stone tanker in Granite to be for all practical considerations unkillable on SO enhancements... even a tower buffed Lord Recluse is easy to handle unassisted. Therefore I don't look for survivability bonuses primarily; I'm looking for ways to mitigate the penalties of mobility, recharge and to a much lesser extent damage.

To that end I look for recharge bonuses first, movement bonuses second and "other" bonuses a distant third. Crushing Impact for single target attacks, Doctored Wounds for Earth's Embrace, Hasten, Gift of the Ancients, Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge (if you have the inf for them) are my sets of choice for a Stoner.

Here's what I consider the powers you'll want in a Stone tanker, relatively in order, based on playing two of them to 50:

Rock Armor - your basic armor and the one you'll spend 50% or more of your time in on small-medium teams. Save Granite and it's penalties for when you really need the protection.

Earth's Embrace - the basic dull pain power, this is a big heal and hit point boost. I slot 5 Doctored Wounds here maximizing the heal and recharge.

Rooted - Mez protection and regeneration buff, this is a staple power from level 8-50. In addition it offers you near-immunity to endurance drains (so there Malta Sapper!). You won't always need it in Granite which has it's own mez shield but in Rock Armor it's a must. Enhance it's heal and maybe a little endred.

Mud Pots - your taunt aura and damage aura; you'll want to slot this for accuracy, damage and endred. Multi Strike works great here, or you can frankenslot.

Stone Skin - a bit of S/L resistance in a passive, with just the base slot it will cap your S/L at 90% in Granite. Toss the Steadfast 3% def unique into the base slot and you're good to go.

Granite Armor - you wanted to be an unkillable behemoth so Granite is the must-have of the set.

Minerals - psi defense, and a noticeable amount of it. This can be useful in a handful of encounters in the late (40+) game but it's not essential. I wouldn't get it until 41 and it is skippable.

I see no real reason to snag either Brimstone or Crystal armor, the vast majority of attacks will be covered by Rock anyway and you always have Granite if things get sticky.

Fire Melee:

Scorch - you're stuck with this, and with the new changes of GR the 20% resistance debuff in all tanker tier 1 attacks will come in handy.

Combustion - the first of your AOE's, large 15' radius and a great aggro getter. Multi Strike or Scirocco's Dervish work well here.

Taunt - ranged, AOE autohit attention getter. You're limited in mobility so this is highly useful. Frankly I can't imagine rolling any tanker without it but it's especially useful on Stone.

Fire Sword Circle - the second of your AOE's, shorter 10' radius but higher damage than Combustion. IMO a must-have ASAP, it opens at 28 and that's when I get it. Slotting is the same as Combustion.

Incinerate - high damage single target, mostly DOT. This is a useful attack to have; it just takes several seconds to deal it's damage.

Greater Fire Sword - your heavy hitter single target attack.

Fire Sword is useful as a filler attack if you have room, and Breath of Fire is nice mainly as a (short) ranged attack... it's AOE is narrow enough that you won't often get many mobs in it.

Pool powers to consider:

Fitness (of course), get Swift and 3 slot it for runspeed.

Teleport - it's your best method of combat mobility and the only travel power that works without dropping Rooted and Granite. It's not a lot of fun for zone travel but it's very useful for getting around in a mission. I realize you don't like TP... heck, I don't like it either but I don't really see a viable alternative on a stone tanker. A Kinetic will negate the movement speed but you'll be unable to jump over any obstacle (or mob).

Speed - Hasten will eliminate the recharge penalty of Granite while it's up, something you'll come to appreciate.

Hover - this makes using TP for travel much more pleasant, you won't have to worry about falling out of the sky from a lag spike.

Stone/Fire is a very potent combination; it offers good damage with extreme durability. I've gotten the MoSTF badge three times with mine. (I've also gotten it a couple times with CMA, my Inv/Stone) In my opinion it's probably the best Stone pairing with each filling in the other's holes (Stone's durability making up for Fire's lack of mitigation and Fire's damage making up for Stone's -damage)

Two Ill/Rads would work very well together. You could add a Fire or Archery blaster for more AOE damage... an Ill/Rad should be able to help with aggro. Still, more Rad is always nice to have for stacking the debuffs and AM.