Commando

I love my Ice/SS, and I have invested a whole lot of time and inf to power him up. I have three different IO'd Ice/ tankers, and the hardest one to kill by very far is my Ice/Dark melee.

But, since I want to try something new as well and I have been looking and reading here and on Mids, I have to give my vote for the most rare combo and perhaps underestimated build-

Dark / Ice melee tanker, a controller and a tanker at the same time. Some very decent resists, a self heal, control powers on both sets, Ice melee has some very very good AoE/Cone dmg...

I never made one but the more I learn about it, the more I am convinced.

I have been as straight forward since my first post in this thread, please refer to it. More straightforward than the math written here is the math shown in my practice alone or vs others.

Which really does not have much of a strong point since they can take the same inspirations as the next guy and they drop as you kill. When I was timing the fire/fire/fire tanker I did notice he/she took a lot more reds than the others I was timing. Yet, with 4-5 reds, the tanker was still doing less dmg than ss/fire brute with very high fury.

Are you in freedom? If so send me a private message. I would like to watch your Fortunata vs some of the blasters which usually hang out in Pocket D.

Dark,

The year is 2011. i12 and i13 are long long gone. A good fort will still be a losing fort vs good psy blasters and Dom's. More dmg from blasters, receiving a major nerf in def/elusivity, blasters or Doms and other squishies taking resists plus the game given resists (that will give higher resists to the other squishies than the Fort will have).

It is an uphill battle for the Fort in these days.

It would just be a sight to behold to see a brute throw spines or do Ripper, or even just spine burst with 70+ fury AND have DoT aura and fire aura (which is already pretty strong tool for brutes who farm)

I have raced the following builds in ambushes vs 54s:

Fire/fire/fire tank

Fire/fire/fire brute

Elec/fire/fire brute

elec/fire/mu brute

spines/fire scrapper

fire/ss/fire tank

I have beaten them all with my SS/Fire/Mu. The closest rival came 2 minutes and 20 seconds within my time. Rage, especially double stacked makes a huge difference. I will admit, outside of vs fire dmg, this build can be such an aggro monster and be SOOOO squishy.

My build has a global recharge of 80%, no accolades, yep, no accolades whatsoever. I don't sit and wait for Foot stomp. I always have, at different times or at the same time, burn, ball lightning, fences, and foot stomp available. The dmg is mouth watering once fury is even at just 60 percent. I don't even run blazing aura. I do enough dmg without throwing all that end away. I pack no blues when going in. I only take them while in mish because I want to make room for red drops (hoping they drop).

With fire/kin trollers, we can not race vs the same class of opponents all the time, fire/kin trollers will be massacred in ambushes. I have done "Battle for TV" and BM at lvl 52s and set for 6-8 people, once the brute reaches about 40 or 45 fury, he's way too fast, one ball lighting and foot stomp wipes almost all, but if burn begins the animation, I can rest assure the spawn will be cleared and I can move on. If SS/Fire/Mu can drop 54s very quickly with just 3 attacks, I can just look at 52s from a distance and they become ashes.

So, for efficiency and speed vs a very limited type of dmg (fire dmg) vs 54s I will give the vote to SS/Fire/Mu brute.

Cardiac is head and shoulders more beneficial to your build. The dmg you will be dealing is massive already, so musculature is really not so attractive now because the return is small. Recharge... dont worry about it, with global recharge at even 70+ you will be fine.

Cardiac solves many of the end issues you will face. I roll a lot faster on my brute since Cardiac.

That and the fact that with so many people with high global accuracy through PvP IOs or SS/ melee everywhere, you will get hit enough to faceplant you. You do not have much resists like some other squishies who can take their resists shiels or tough + game given resists.

The cut in elusivity and the cut in dmg Forts received makes them meh, to put it mildly.

Edit note: besides, for the amount of inf you spend on making a Fort better and better, you will get a lot more bang for the inf by just choosing another toon. That's IMO.

Brutes, well built, will beat any fire/kin, skills being the same. Brute's higher dmg cap, even 75 or 80 percent fury, double rage... protected from mez's, sorry. I have even raced fire/kins and I leave them behind. If it's for strictly farming, the brute will outperform the fire/kin. Heck, even before IO's, a fire/fire/weapons blaster would have beaten a Fire/Kin. THe following chain on a well built fire/fire/weapons blaster:

Sleep grenade, Aim+BU, Fire Sword Circle, Fire Ball, and blaze the boss if it was alive, then move on. All that would happen so fast, it was silly.

With AE and the capacity for SS/Fire (or even ele/fire) brutes to set the critters for fire dmg, there is NO competition. A brute will take on 54s and kill so fast, it's not even close, add to that the fact that a brute can handle a whole lot more mobs w/out worrying about dying.

I own 3 Ice/ tankers, and they are completely IO'd. The hardest one to kill is my Ice/Dm. I have done Tin Mage, STF, and other challenging TFs.

If you are trying to decide between Ice/Ice or Stone/Stone, I would choose Ice/Ice.

Warning: be careful, and don't believe anyone who tells you /Ice melee is not good or is only a controlling set. /Ice Melee is one of the secrets in the game for secondaries. The dmg is solid and reliable, and I will add very respectable dmg.

Please look at the excellent guide for /Ice Melee dmg

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=186523

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. 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 hit 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.

Edit notes: fixed some spelling errors and some grammatical errors. Excuse me if I made others which were not corrected, since work takes away my time.

I am ready to buy it. I sent a mssg in game to your global. Mine is @voltak or @rocka wave

In other words, this is the place. Need say more?

You must add Thunderstrike hits multiple opponents. Increasing the dmg of thunderstrike and keeping it an AoE is not very good.

I am willing to trade that for Panacea Regen/recovery/hitpoints Proc, already crafted; let me know. @Voltak or @Rocka Wave, anyone.