Commando

None of the above, my friend. Pair DM/ with /Regen. Defense is back to as bad as it was pre i13. People with low global acc bonus in their build cried too much that Elusivity was OP'd, and the people who could beat Defense based toon, outside of SS, were fine with it. The result- the Devs handed a solution to those who cried too much and defense is back on the shelf. The only defense toons I might even consider playing now are Energy Aura (if I could live in Overload and get the decrease recharge time), Shields (they get decent resists along with their defense), and Ice armor (because of a great self heal and hibernate).

/SR has nothing to mitigate when they start hitting consistently through Elude. I say that because the scaling resistances are coming in when you are already in big trouble. That is not for my taste.

It depends, if the OP decides he wants to try arena more often than zone, the best, for the most part, toon out there is a cold/dark defender.

There is tons of stuff you can do solo in CoH, regardless of level. At 50, you still have arcs/contacts you can do. You also have Ouroboros with its plethora of contacts and missions. If I throw AE in it, it is just infinite.

Edit: and the way this BAF works now, it seems to me they learned a thing or two from a long time favorite game of mine, Guild Wars. You click to enter and regardless of AT or power sets, you will get in and you do have a role to play and something to contribute.

I am not exactly sure what rage you have been listening. I have been saying since i6, when I rolled a fire/rad, and since i7, when he hit 50:

Fire/Kin hype is just related to farming. They farm well. Even back then, they were not the fastest, since some tanks could farm other maps/mishs and get a lot more. Specially built fire/fire blasters would also farm better... hero side.

They are terrible toons to solo 1-31 or even 1-37. My fire/rad and mind/kin solo'd a lot better and smoother than a fire/kin would. My ill/rad will leave both of them in the dust and would compete with scrappers for speed in 1-50soloing.

Don't go back to Dominators because of an experience with fire/kin. You want to be impressed with a solid controller to solo? Try an illusion controller. Want to pair it up with /kin? Play an ill/kin. An illusion controller, with /rad, especially, will be an awesome solo controller. Take one of those and call me back in about 3-4 months. :-)

This is interesting. I used my Ice tankers, two of them, for the STF yesterday. First I ran my Ice/SS. I do not turn rage on while tanking LR while ToHit/Acc tower is up. In fact I only turned Rage on towards the end when towers were down. My defenses are at 50, so one med Purp two oranges were fine for me. I had a good empth on me and I never needed to hit Hib, but I was ready to hit Hib at any time (after taunting constantly).

Second Ice/ was my Ice/Dark Melee, my defenses are at 52 s/l and 58 En/Ne, 25 positional all around. This tank was a lot smoother to handle LR. Whif, whif, whif, whif, about all the time. The few times I got hit, I had HF and siphon life ready and my good ol' empth and hibnernate. Never did hit Hibernate.

Today I ran with my Elec/SS tank. He did die. I had an empth but no AB on empth. So when LR got a lucky streak, it was a bit hard. I packed medium oranges and purps. When those ran out, it was the times LR had the streak. Died three times but we did it. We left a dead body by LR, had VENG up all the time and it was good to go. Veng and fallout works.



Abysmal Ice - Ice/SS, Gloomy Frost Ice/Dm, Sugar Ray Ice Elec/SS

Absolutely not. My earth/earth will seismic smash you to a pulp for calling him a blaster with controls. My earth/earth is CONTROLLER WITH SMASH !!!!

It was probably me, and I must have been me playing on my Sup'd up Fortunata. Being able to AoE hold and ST hold, confuse, do some very decent dmg, a solid nuke with no end crash, kill, and evade a whole lot of things, and a great recovery inherent... Makes my Doms a little, just a little envious.

J/k

Actually, I have a true story to tell now. Thanks to 2xp weekend, I felt inspired to make a new toon, and after having so many 50s, it was quite a task to decide on something. I started playing around with Mids. Taking a look at the secondaries. Energy assault looked tempting for TF and other energy blasts but it did not jump at me. I kept sorting through, and I thought: I really want to play an earth controller since I have never had one and the rep is there for being the King of controls, Earth/ . But there is one big problem. Soloing an earth/ controller can be sooo soo tough or impossible early on because of very low dmg. Wait, what if a Dominator with Earth/ control did the trick? I could pair that up with some dmg then. I then started to look at the numbers with /Earth assault. Anyone out there besides me just drooled when they saw in Mids Earth assault?

I rolled earth/earth, terrible mistake. I was addicted and hooked very badly. Double xp weekend did not let me get out at all for some fresh air. I played and played and played my earth/earth for an unknown amount of time. I felt like a brute. Everytime the noise from all the earth assault smashes came through loud on the speakers I felt a rush. It was worse when earthquake came and then stalagmites and then all the slots and enhancements. In teams I seriously outcontrolled just about any other Dom we had. My earth controls were everywhere and came through in ambushes, and even came through when someone aggro'd wrong group. But that's not all, I not only helped keep them controlled, i actually was out there face to face with all enemies and smashing their skulls in.

I played from lvl 1 to lvl 41 this weekend. I am never ever going to look back and doubt I made the funnest choice. Earth/earth - the problem for my new addiction.

TerraShock- Freedom server

For anyone who is having issues with Ice melee dmg, please refer to the excellent guid (I wish it was stickied forever) on Ice melee. Go to the guides in Tank section. If you read that you will see, and if you do it, you will know for sure. Ice melee is some very solid dmg, especially referring to AoE/cone dmg.

Objectively, MMs are not near the top at all, w/e their powersets might be, in duels. The biggest reason is they can not force the issue at all. I have fought many MMs, poison and others. None of them can force the issue. The only melees that lose to MMs are melees who don't think very well in the fight. They almost try to approach an MM like they would another melee toon, and that's just suicide.

Frankly, a draw is the most likely outcome of a fight between a melee and an MM. Some melee's might be able to just Shield bash then Lightning rod and other things, some others cant do similar things.

If a melee loses to an MM, it's because he wants to, but from my experience, MM's can not force the isse in duel fights. They might be able to TP you in arena (if they took TP) but you can run right back out or TP yourself right back out. They sell TP powers in arena and I always pack it when facing MMs. LOL at people who want to duel MMs in a cage.

Some squishies might be able to force the issues with MMs. A grav/FF troller will very likely pwn all MMs in duels since they can easily take out of bodyguard mode, and I have also seen, fire/elec Doms beat MMs pretty hard since bonfire and thunderstrike are kind of a pain for MMs.

But MMs just basically set up and wait for most unwise people to come in and take on them and their army, for the most part.

I am kind of convinced most people who keep DR ON, in squishy vs squishy fights, is because of the capped resists squishies receive or are able to obtain. That's it. You lower those resists for squishies and I know almost all arena fights will be with DR off.

I participate in fightclubs and I also duel outside of fightclub and plenty. I am pretty sure the reason DR is kept ON in arena is because of the resists squishies receive.

Also, what PC guy said concerning HD and TS, those are NOT, by any means, factors which do not have a profound effect in a person's build. On the contrary, without HD and TS, the squishies and other toons have a huge impact in how well they perform in PvP.

So I clearly disagree with PC guy there.

On another note, I really don't understand why a squishy would refuse to allow DR off when fighting a melee toon. After their resists is higher, in fact, at cap, if they take their shields or tough, AND fight from range.

I fully understand squihies having those resists lowered. I do have to add I have been in the arena with DR off about 25-30 times now. I will shared what I have seen:

The dmg of your attacks is substancially increased, then add to that the fact that dmg procs ignore any resists you may have.

The resists squishies receive is increased but the dmg they receive is also increased.

Debuffs are NOT DR'd if you turn DR OFF. That is just obvious but it's really nice to see Rad/ debuffs or Cold/ debuffs, especially powerboosted be even greater with NO DR.

Let's not even talk about slows, since when they are not DR'd, they are just very impressive.

DMG bonuses you might prepare in your build with MIDs or other tools, are not DR'd.

Quote from Positron:

"I understand a hatred towards DR, as it really does monkeywrench a lot of builds..."

He is right on the money with this, a very mean monkeywrench. I pasted a response on that same thread:

"I am particularly fustrated at how a Tank's shields are DR'd, and I am not even going to mention brutes. After spending so much inf to make the brute and the tanks, and then seeing the large cuts in their shields, for resists, I gave up. I no longer will accept any duels with DR on on those toons.

Resist based melee toons have no PVP resist bonus from the game. This is also the case with Defense/ based melee toons. When entering in arena with DR on, a tank vs a scrapper is at a BIG disadvantage. The dmg from the scrapper is not taking as much of a cut as a Tank's shields. The tank is only a bigger bag of HP's but with some shields that are not going to do much to even the fight. Now consider dmg procs, plus a scrapper's base dmg and Critical Hits... no, no way, am I accepting or dueling with DR on.

Let me provide some numbers:

On my Fire/Fire tanker with DR off

Smashing/Lethal resists are at 79.6% (same as PvE). With DR on, they are at 49.97. 30% perccent cut is a vast cut in the resist. I will provide a practical example from real game play. I entered the arena with a claws/regen scrapper with DR on, the DPS from the claws scrapper (Captain IShredU/freedom) was so fast (and then factor the procs) that a 30 percent cut took my Fire/Fire tanker down in about 45 seconds. The 4 seconds delay of Healing Flames with DR on would not make a difference that much of a difference. The resist cut DID a significant difference. I entered the arena with DR off. Enormous difference, my resists were decidedly making a difference. I would not hit Healing flames faster than the 15 seconds I had with DR on. But his chances of losing were about as good as mine: no one lost; it was a draw.

On my Elec/SS tanker with DR off

Smashing/Lethal resists are 78.8% (same as PvE)
Energy 90% (same as PvE)
Psy 83.3 (this is due to resist and defenses now providing shields for all dmg in PVP) and electric in PVE gives my build a 73% resist shield)

With DR on

S/L resists are 49.57 (about 30 percent cut again)
Energy 65.47 (about 25% percent cut)
Psy 51.21 (22% percut cut from PvE, but a 32% percent cut from PvP DR off)

I have duel'd about 20 or so Psy blasters in arena. I bring a whole tray of greens with DR on. The greens are saving me in such cases. I have beaten most of them, tied 3 times, lost once (lack of greens on that one, since i had two rows of reds). My resist cut make a dramatic difference in the fights.

With DR off, yes, the blaster has his resists capped, but I also gain more of my resists to Psy. The one who has more chances of winning, if the blaster if playing for the win as well, in that fight is me. The record is 2 wins, 2 draws for me (blasters were all playing to win in those cases, the ties the blasters were less aggressive and more elusive). Those were vs some of the better blasters in Freedom. With DR on, I am a big bag of HPs with resists shields that a blaster with the rate of fire and the dmg output will wear down my Tank much much faster. I don't mind fighting squishies who have capped resists with DR off, I am just glad I have mine back.

Add healing decay in zone, add travel suppression in zone... add these and other things in zone on top of DR ON and it's dislikeable.

I duel now with DR off with my defense based toons or resists bases toons. If the opponent does not like it, that's fine. I am sure he/she will find someone who does want to duel with DR on.

Very fustrating to invest 5-10 bill in a toon and have a huge chunk of what you invest DR'd. It was my money and my investment, let me decide if I want Diminished Returns. If and when I hear from others who have something to say about me not dueling with DR on anymore, I just ignore it. It's my decision if I want my stuff DR'd. I don't like it, and don't use it in arena.

I just ask you to remove DR from zones as well."

WOoops, I apologize for not paying attention to that detail.

Dark miasma/ has a powerful heal, and it does recharge fast enough to present problems to whoever is trying to kill you, the heal and the -to hit debuff is a bit of an obstacle. I do not like rad blast/ . IMO the dmg is as strong for my taste. I would try fire or sonic, or maybe even dark blast.

You know, eventhough removing Diminished Returns would grant everyone their full IO bonuses AND increase everyones dmg to pretty close or right on to what Mids say, I am kind of perplexed seeing almost everyone who joins arena for team matches or duels KEEP DR ON.

"Squishies get their resists capped if they take their resist shields..." So?? Everyones dmg will also go higher and if you plan to have your DMG bonuses higher you will get it w/out being DR'd. You could have /Rads or /Sonics debuff resistance. If people would turn DR OFF in arena, bubblers would also be contributers to the team.

I see it too often. Forcefield can not contribute much now since DR, but peeps keep DR on. Then if you have a toon with resist shields, the sonic shields wont do much since they would be at cap already. But a defense based toon would love the sonic shields. So a blaster who does not take a resist shield but a defense shield, would benefit from a sonic shield AND an FF shield for defense.

Play with DR off is my suggestion. Playing with DR on is not something I would do and still complain that DR is just terrible.

Absolutely. If you happen to be in Freedom, I suggest you hang in Pckt D sometimes or watch the arena chat and look for Kumo of Maji. He/She has a great rad/dark defender. With powerboost, the toon is amazing. If Kumo happens to have a challenger, go and observe. Many times people don't accept the 1 vs 1 announcement she makes, but watch and observe if you get the chance.