Diran

I've been waiting, but doesn't look like anyone has shown up tonight.

@Templar Ted

I had a good time last night too. I should be there next week too. I think if more of us were high levels or slotted better we could of done better on a couple of the missions. I picked up some enhancements so hopefully I'll be contributing more next time. Hope the others do the same.

Ice/energy is great. My friend plays one and we've teamed a lot. Nice powerful combo. I have an elec/elec, and I think ice/elec would play well too. You miss out on TF, but you get another hold that stacks better with ice/ instead of disorients.

Ice/ice is always a great solo set. I'm also having a blast with my rng/rng. He's much better soloer than my elec/elec. Rather than fear the knockback you can use it really well when solo.

Friday nights I can do. I'll see if I can join you next weekend.

I haven't thought about it, but there doesn't seem to be any problem with it. Cold is a strong set but if you don't like shielding people it loses a lot of it's benefit. I'm not really familiar with elec/, but cold doesn't particularly have anything to help protect against some of the aggro grabbing skills elec seems to have. Some of those have a built in defense anyway though.

I'd say just play it. If it's something you enjoy it's a lot more important than trying to be power house.

I also have a 50 fire/fire tank that I really enjoyed leveling up. My other tanks aren't 50 and aren't suited for damage, so he's fun to bring out. For the same reason I think he's more fun to group with other tanks since I can play him more like a scrapper. There are a lot of other characters that can handle higher than single difficultly, but that depends on playstyle. I also have a warshade, it's a long journey, but nice when you get up there.

If you like fire/fire, maybe try a fire/fire brute (I also have one at 50) or a fire/fire scrapper. They'll play a little differently but also fun.

My first character at the start of CoH was a BS/Regen, now at 50. The attacks are a little slower compared to then and he still hits hard. I still find regen effective, even if your health does go up and down quite a bit. If you want to be the first person into a group using recon and DP can take quite a bit of time, so it's better to use IH or MoG. If that is the type of scrapper you want to build a defense based scrapper might be better. Follow the tank in and regen works fine most of the time and you have to tools to survive if it gets tough.

Since regen has so many clicks you can just go for +recharge which works well with broadsword to bring your big hitters back more quickly. I tend to find that easier then +def builds where a few percent at the top end can make quite a difference and it's a little easier on the influence.

It's all good advice. Some will disagree, but I like taking most of the ranged except for the snipe, and most of the secondary melee attacks. They hit pretty hard and helps you learn when you can be in close and when you can't. The power push and power thrust can be pretty useful. Fitness is probably needs. Combat jumping (leaping) is good, although I tend to use SS in spurts. I'm not as big of a fan of medicine and concealment, but they work well for a lot of players. Depends on your play style.

I don't think freezing rain is underrated, it's one of the best ways to boost your damage. -res and -def, both with pretty big bonuses. On top of that it does knockdown, slow and -recharge. A lesser debuff lasts for 15s after it ends or a mob leaves the area, and after slotting it's up about when it wears off. It's the star of the set in my opinion.

I've got a Fire/Storm in the 30s that I'm really enjoying. I've had to learn to use the storm powers in ways I didn't with my controllers so it's been more enjoyable to play than I expected. /Dark seems the popular choice and it's also strong. I prefer to shorter recharge time on freezing rain and it's extra effects. I haven't been a big fan of rad, and in this case the longer time to put the debuffs on and they fact they aren't as powerful as defenders made me want to play storm. Personally I solo quite a bit so Kin was out. I have a kin defender at 50 and don't need to go through that again.

Cold is an interesting choice. The main assistance for you damage, Sleet, comes late. You get some really nice single debuffs and buffs for your teammates. Storm offers some other damage, but with a lot of knockback. If you aren't a fan of knockback, cold might be the set to try.

You can play fire/storm without FR, but as others said it will kind of be gimped. slow, -recharge, knockdown, -res and -def all in one power (and decent numbers). It's almost a mini-controller and defender all in one click. Before some advice, I'd suggest taking it with 1 or 2 recharges (probably 2 without hasten). You don't need to use it most of the time, but against things like AVs it will be useful and people will be expecting it.

You say you want to control and fire isn't all that strong at control. Another primary, like earth, would probably be a better choice, but that probably does against your theme.

If you do you fire/storm, I'd concentrate on stuns. Stalagmites for your primary stun, then you can alternate fissure (APP) and thunder clap. I wouldn't build it without earth as the APP though. Your kill speed will be quite a bit slower without FR, so go for S/L defenses stacked with earth armor. Fortunately steamy mist will help with this. It should be easy to get between 10-20% def to other damage types and the resists in SM help against the types you are weak against. S/L should help against a majority of foes even in PvE. Be sure to take cinders for stun resistant foes, even if the recharge is too long.

Because fire is weak on the control side and you are skipping some of storms better powers I'd put a few slots in gale. It can be pretty useful as mitigation depending on the map, mob position and even works as an opener at times. Learn to use hurricane to properly debuff foes your mezes don't work so well against. Tornado and LS combined with hot feet will be your main damage, but do less due to not using FR making the stuns from fissure and thunderclap all that more important.

Depends on your defense numbers you *might* even consider taking smoke (god forbid). You could even try using bonfire as a control power.

Oh, it won't replace freezing rain, but getting the -res proc in tornado will help against hard targets. Doesn't proc that often though.

I'm mostly complete with my versions of DeltaThermal's build and it won't cost you anywhere near that much with how you have it slotted. From what I've seen you can probably do it for a 200 mill or less, and maybe use some tickets for rare salvage. You can easily find some AE teams with a fire/kin as you slot it out. Go for the +def bonuses first as that's the important part of the build, recharge bonuses are extra. Get the cheap ones first to free up your auction slots and then pick up the others over a week to two to find cheaper prices. Some of the skills you won't use much, if at all, so go with cheap low level IOs if you can find them. 45-49 IOs can save a lot of money too if they are available. (Ok, numia's is probably expensive). Don't bother with the +regen, go with the +recovery if you can get it. You've got a great heal, so don't bother with regen.

I'd keep basilisk gaze though. The quad is expensive, but the rest are fairly cheap. Just get it for the recharge bonus. You won't use it all that much, and even then cinders should give you enough protection. You've got fissure for extra stun as well as seismic smash.

I think SI is too high of endurance usage too. I had it, but only used it when traveling, never in missions. You probably won't need invis all the time. Mine is /storm though, so steamy mist provides me with stealth, and that is useful.

You can try slotting blind with 4 from basilik's gaze (sp?) and add to 2 damage IOs. That gives 7.5% recharge plus decent damage and hold. Or a damage/mez HO if you want to give up a bit of damage for additional hold time. Blind does decent damage, so I think it's worth slotting it for damage.

Psi tornado is nice, but I'd miss not having another single target attack. That gives a good blind/SW/single target attack chain. Illusion has problems setting up AOE containment. I'm not sure how you'd fit it in though. Still, your recharge might be fast enough to cycle the two pretty well. Can't load it up in mids on this computer.

I have an Illusion/Storm at 50 and love the character. How much of the skills you use will vary on the team. For a team like the one you were on, with a herd tank, most controllers won't feel that useful. /kin is maybe the strongest in that case, but it would probably be the weakest on a team where you really need storms powers. As others have said, Freezing rain is really a fantastic skill and makes a large difference in battles. For that alone you'll add a lot.

Ill/storm helps more for groups that aren't steamrolling, but that's true of most controllers. When stuff dies that quickly there isn't a need for much control. Stick with FR and take out troublesome mobs. On tough maps you can make a much bigger difference.

I'd probably go with FA/SS, but SD probably does a decent job too. Rage just seems to provide a lot of extra damage for tanks which puts it on top, at least with the proper IOs. My fire/fire tank which I've had for ages isn't shabby at all though and I've been happy with his output.

I archived this build I found on the forums a little while back by Ishtar. I'm not sure where the original post is. It's expensive, but seems like the most scrapperish tank I've ever seen in or out of game. I'm not sure about the original post anymore, but this build isn't mine.

Ishar's tank:

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I probably wouldn't be a max difficulty at that level yet, but your build doesn't seem to have any major problems. Make sure you have at least one end redux in all your attacks and maybe two in big ones you use often if you are still running into problems. Make sure SJ is turned off too (ok, silly, but sometimes people forget) I normally just 3 slot my attacks with 1 acc, 1 recharge and 1 end redux as a brute until later in the game and that works pretty well for me.

The other advice is basically spot on. If you want to take advantage of the most regen has to offer you need recharge so your main four survival skills are up more often. After that, melee defense, or maybe s/l. It can be cheaper to get and adds to melee too.

Also, a lot of your skills, health, fast healing, buildup etc have 3 basic IOs. By the time you get near 50 that third IO is adding very little benefit. I'd recommend reducing these to two IOs and using the slots elsewhere.

Look at some of your skills like Health and Stamina. You can replace one of the basic IOs with a set IO and get some more bonuses.

Hibernate is nice on Ill/storm. Right now I'm using energy. Power blast and energy torrent don't go off quite as often, but it looks good with the phantasm and I like the knockdown. Mainly for converse power though as it allows me to keep going in fast groups and long battles so I can keep summoning and attacking.

Really consider 6 slotting confuse. Contagious confusion is great and you get 5% ranged defense. Also, I believe the first tick needs to hit on freezing rain for the procs to have a chance to go off. I'd recommend some acc in that case.

Where you can, like LS consider franken slotting to get damage, end redux and recharge in there. Something like thunderstrike is cheap and gives ranged defense.

I'd also recommend skipping leadership. Just too much endurance for not enough benefit.

If you can find the slots, 2 acc, or 1 acc 1 acc/knockback is great in gale. (or more knockback depending on your passive acc bonuses) remember is has a penalty. It can actually make a pretty opener in many cases if it hits fairly reliably and helps push mobs into corners/walls. Sometimes I forget about it with all the skills I have, but I've been using it more often lately to great effect. YMMV

Came back and a lot of good responses. Recharge is the way to go, unfortunately it is rather expensive. Getting some ranged defense is rather cheap (to 20-30%) which should help your nova form quite a bit and you can save up for the recharge sets if you aren't currently rich. I don't really have much to add to advice you received above.

I have been playing around in Mids, but haven't come up with a human warshade build I like yet. :-/

He asked about a large damage improvement and doing mass killing. I'll admit I'm not an expert in human form builds, but that's going to be easier with a dual or triform build. It's not that you can't make an effective warshade going all human.

Please post your recommended human warshade build how to do some 'mass killing'. Or if it's mostly purples, two builds. One reasonably priced.

You can set up a bind to help with targetting a defeated foe for unchained essence. In all though, I agree with Obsidian. You'll be hurting yourself not going tri-form. Nova is for damage, and dwarf isn't bad in damage anymore, as well as breaking mezes and pretty solid defense I find I use both a lot. I only drop into human for buffs, large attacks and to summon pets. The human form damage isn't that great. Human nova could work for you, but you'll probably be spending most of the time in nova, not human.

Read some of the threads about warshade binds. There are some in there to help you target defeated foes so you can use unchained essence more easily.