DrMike2000

Lets see. Your powers give you:

Combat Jumping (default slot for defence): 2.25%
Weave (slotted) : 6%
Indomitable Will (slotted): 12% vs Psi
Heightened Senses (slotted): 4% vs S/L, 15.6% vs F/C/E/N

Add in the Steadfast proc: 3% to all

15.25% S/L
26.85% vs F/C/E/N
23.25% Psi

You also have a smidgin of To Hit debuff in RttC - call it 2% vs +2's?

You can fit in 3 PBAoE's, 2 Melee sets, 3 Resist sets (Tough, MoB and HPT) and 2 Defence sets.

PBAoE Options:
3 x Eradication: +9.4% E/N, +4.6% F/C
3 x Scirroco's: +9.4% Psi, +4.6% F/C

Resist Options:
3 x Reactive Armour: + 3.75% S/L/E/N, +1.875% F/C
3 x Impervium Armour: +5.5% Psi
3 x Aegis: +14% F/C

Melee Options:
2 x Kinetic Combat: +7.5% S/L
2 x (Pulverising Fisticuffs/Pounding Slugfest, 3 of each): +5% E/N

What do you wnat to try and cap? I'd ignore S/L - you already have 70% resistance, and can buy the Kinetic Dampener temp power for an extra 16% for emergencies like a really heavy S/L AV.
(Or use the Duellist accolade power if you can be bothered loggin in an arena every night after 21 days in a PVP zone... done this and its a drag...)

Energy is next most common, and Psi as you point out is a pain in the butt often, not just Ringmistresses but also Tarantula Mistresses pack a heavy Def debuff on a Psi vector.

Eradications, Reactive Armours and the hybrid melee option gives you 45% vs E/N.

You'll end up with:

19% S/L
45% E/N
33.3% F/C
23.25% Psi

Now, Psi Defence also comes in temp powers. Elusive Mind is 10% Psi Defence, and the Vanguard Shield is 15% (or is it the other way round?). These should take care of Psi emergencies.

This option lets you fight Rikti much more safely, probably Circle of Thorns too (negative, fire and cold).

Or, you could rack up around 38% Psi resist by choosing the Impervium Armours and Scirroco's Dervish, and specialise in fighting Carnies and Arachnos. Maybe 40% with a full set of Miracle in there somewhere.


I'd try to cap Energy and Negative if I were you.

EDIT: 2 sets of Red Fortune in Weave and Heightened Senses is a further 2.5% vs E/N. That frees up say 2 Reactive Armours to be something else, say two Aegis for a further 9% F/C, bringing that up to 42%.

So to sum up, that's:
2 x Red Fortune (6 pieces)
2 x Aegis (5 pieces)
1 x Reactive Armour (5 pieces)
3 x Eradication (6 pieces)
2 x (3 Pounding Slugfest, 3 Pulverising Fisticuffs)

to cap E/N and almost cap F/C.
Rely on temp powers (or luck pills) when you need to boost S/L or Psi.

Sonic Blast is the best set overall, due to the stacking -Res debuffs. It boosts damage in this way more than most primaries do.

Its an even better solo set due to Siren's Song - a perma-out-of-the box AOE Sleep.

For a primary, pair it with Kinetics for most damage. You can also use Siphon Power/Speed, Fulcrum, Transfusion and Transference on slept enemies without waking them up.

Finally, the -Res amplifies the damage debuffs of Kinetics. Its win all round with this combo.

Everything people are asking for in this thread (not having ally-only buffs, not having toggle debuffs, whatever) can already be achieved TODAY by playing another archetype or powerset.


Asking for team-centric powersets to be changed or removed is removing diversity from the game.

Why should a player who wants to make a team-centric character be barred from doing so?

I'm a games programmer, and I agree with Claws here.

When you change something in a game (or any other piece of complex software) you effectively "wobble the jelly" and all sorts of seemingly unrelated bugs can crop up. Once they're identified and understood they're usuallly quick to fix, but finding them and identifying them can take heaps of time.

Imagine what the full test suite would be like for CoX. Test every power for every archetype under a wide variety of conditions (teamed, solo, against AVs, fighting your own duplicates) etc and make sure nothing bad happens.
All this testing costs money.



Here's an example of such a bug:

Heroes were allowed to go Villain-side with GR.
This meant Kheldians could play Villain content.
Carnies are available to fight from level 30 on redside instead of 40 like blueside).
Khelidans spawn Quantums.
Quantum Carnies are set to minimum level 40.

The upshot is any Villain team in the low 30's who has or had had a Khelidan on board can be presented with a mission thats impossible to finish, because of a level 40 minion near the objective or in the corridor or whatever. Its quite devastating when it happens, and potentially very embarrasing and alienating for the Khled player involved.

To find this one, you need to take a Kheldian (a rare archetype) to the other side (the less popular one of the two) and fight one specific enemy group within a speciifc level range.

The fix is simple, change one entry on the spreadsheet (minimum level for Quantum Carnies) and everyone's happy. Finding it however, is a dog of a job, and its certainly not the first thing you'd think of if you're implementing side-switching.


So, you really think it would be easy and cheap to find all the potential problems that self targetting could introduce?

I still think there must be a way of tying forms to costume slots.


We change costume... We morph into different power forms...

It would make the Kheldian AT so much more versatile for other concepts beyond the one given to us by the game.

Sure, its possible to make a melee based Kineticist if you're willing to put up with the sub-par performance. I'm all for bending archetype roles as much as poss, but this one is an uphill battle.

The problem with Kinetics as a speedster set that I find is that the self buffs (Transfusion, Transference and Fulcrum Shift) force you to be positioned in melee range and not move. The set punishes you for kiting unless you have incredible control over your character, which is problematic as Siphon Speed stacks come and go and your movement speed changes under you. I found stand-and-heal tactics much more effective than kiting, and no-one likes dying repeatedly for concept.

(Lumi's guide also suggests Dark Pit and Iron Blade temp power, neither of which are great conceptual fits with classic spandex speedsters)

My own Kinetics Defender made very good use of Sands of Mu to achieve that superspeed feel (Flurry rotted in my tray and eventually got repecced out), but remained very much a speedster with electrical abilities rather than just a speedster.

His Praetorian counterpart is an Elec/Elec Dominator with Superspeed, and I'm going the set bonuses and slotted prestige sprint route to get some combat zippiness.

But, both feel like very poor approximations to what I'm really trying to do.

To introduce it now, you'd have to have it as an option.

I'm sure there are quite a few Illusion Controllers out there whose concept involves them summoning featureless energy people rather than duplicates of themselves. So would this be a new option somewhere just for this one power, or baked into the animation effects like choosing Original/Bright/Dark, or what?

Its more than an hours work, even just the coding. Then there's the whole QA/tetsing cycle on top of that.

But, it would be very very cool to have this option.

I'm no Tanker expert, but have really enjoyed playing characters where I don't watch their helath bars.

I really enjoyed my Fire/SS, my first tank. I picked this combo with an eye to rage-fuelled Blazing Aura, and it worked a treat. Good AoE and good Burst damage in KO Blow, better than many of my Blasters in fact in that I could one shot a minion with it. (I needed snipes to do that on Blasters, usually with a pre-buff too). I stopped a few levels short of Footstomp, so never got to feel the full power.

My one 50 has been Dark/Energy Melee. Stacking stuns makes me a melee Controller, often having a couple of bosses staggering around me. The immunity to Psi damage and End Drain is great in the late game. My main weakness, energy damage, was shored up with set bonuses for E/NE defence. The damage aura helps out with Energy Melee's rubbish AoE damage.

Willpower/SS was less spectacular. I felt the lack of damage aura quite strongly. Once again, never quite reached Footstomp, which would boost my play experience heaps, I'm sure.

My current Tanker is Kinetic/Invulnerability. I really felt the age of Invulnerability fighting +4 Maltas the other day - little or no End drain protection and the Zeus Titans fire patches were eating me alive. Against less exotic enemies though I can fall asleep at the keyboard. Its not a great combo that I'd recommend to anyone else, just fitted my concept. I like the range of Repulsion torrent (I'm good with KB) and I'm looking forwards to Focussed Burst though. Power Siphon is just an oddity.

All of them had Tough, by the way, and benefitted greatly from it.

I forgot to mention. In Australia, "to root" is slang for "to have sex with".

The word "rooted" therefore translates as "screwed" or stronger equivalents, eg "We were going to drive to Melbourne but his car was rooted."

I feel a strong sense of poetic resonance thinking about that in relation to this power.

Yeah, superspeedsters aren't easy to do in CoH.

Kinetics lets you have unsupressed combat speed and zip around like the Flash, but its not a melee set.

Martial Arts/Super Reflexes or soemthing similar does the trick, but your Super Speed supresses in combat.

I wrote up an idea for travel power-based secondaries for melee-ists, its in my sig.

Have a look at this thread:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=238297

If you're playing a Bane who used to be a Crab or some combination like that (ie you aren't using any Crab powers now) this might help you detach that backpack.

What Deacon said.

Both take TT:Manouvers and Leadership Manouvers, and slot them fully for defence and some endurance redux. You've now got 42% defence or so, enough for any occasion.
The Bane will be soft-capped with Mask Presence, even when its suppressed.

Both take TT:Assualt and Leadership Assault for +60% damage at all times. Slot one or two end redux in each.

Both take TT:Leadership for more To Hit and perception bonuses than you'll almost ever need. Slot for end redux first, then a bit of To Hit buff.

Then just grab as many AoEs as possible and go to town. Suppression, Venom Grenade and Frag Grenade for the Crab.
I'd take Heavy Burst, Venom Grenade and Frag for the Bane (making them a bit Huntsman) but I don't know if you'd like that or not.

For anyone who wants to take up your challenge, do you want IOs or SOs? Any price limits?

Cool! Always good to see another Sonic Defender.

I guess there'll be a bit of dynamic toggle management there, even with the two Heal uniques and the Stamina proc. But, you do have time to do that with Sonic.

I'm guessing that the Centiroles still give out schedule A level values of +33% resistance? Is that the cheat?

Energy Manipulation makes do for now for Blasters with some Martial Arts skills - ignore the glowing fists as just part of the game environment, like the way your head glows different colors when you get inspired.

If I had to make a Black Canary or Connor Hawke Green Arrow homage today I'd use Energy Manipulation.

But a Martial Arts secondary with some of the MA attacks would be awesome, and not at all contradictory to the spirit of Manipulation sets.

Rooted really turns me away from this set.

The speed penalty on Granite is good game design: "You can suffer movement penalties in exchange for being incredibly tough" Very cool, and lends itself to strategic decision making during combat.

The (harsher) speed paenalites and -Jump on Rooted are appalling game design: "You can suffer a movement penalty or be mezzed and thus unable to move at all, well, maybe stagger around drunk". This is no choice at all really. If you're tanking and holding aggro, you're going to have some mezzes sitting on you most of the time.

Fortunately, there's always Invulnerability and stone skin costume pieces as an alternative for any would-be rock men or women.

The blood transfusion sound slike science to me, Captain.

(unless its vampire or demon blood, or something magical)

My first Dom was a Mind/Psi pure telepath.

I'd change a few things about your slotting...

Mesmerise lasts a long time unslotted (44 sec) - I don't know if I'd 3 slot it for sleep. On a Controller I'd slot it as a damage attack. On a CDominator, maybe save those three slots for now. Just one acc one end redux will be fine.

Dominate could use some recharge. My standard SO slotting would be 2 Acc, 2 Rech, 2 Hold for a fast recharging long lasting hold to permahold bosses out of Domination.

Mind Probe is a heavy hitter. Stick the 3 slots in there from Mesmerise and put damage in them.

Confuse lasts 30 seconds base, so 3 sloting for Confusion is not necessary. I'd change one or two of them to recharge. Its good to start a fight by confusing the boss, this will let you do that quicker. (BTW, this also builds Domination and is aggro free, great for when an EB defeats you and you want to re-engage them with Domination up...). Maybe even just one acc 2 rech and give the spare slot to Dominate.

Total Domination: Forget the end redux, its up every 4 minutes base so you won't drain yourself with it. Ideally I'd go 2 Acc, 2 Rech 2 Hold, maybe drop a Hold here? 2 Acc is definitely necessary becuase of the low base accuracy.

Drain Psyche: I'd slot for heal and recharge mainly, it already gives you more end than you can use.

Mass Confusion: Needs 2 acc again, it has a low base accuracy. I'd go 2 Recharge, 1 confuse, 2 Acc. End reduction isnt necessary again. With this and Total Domination 2 slotted for recharge, they both recharge every 2 min 25 seconds or so. This gives you a hard control up every minute nearly if you alternate their use.

Hope that all helps.

I find the lack of variable weather snaps me out of the game as much as the fact my character can't lie down, or can only eat donuts and hot dogs.

ie not at all.

I can think of plenty of things that would be a better use of dev time than weather.

(To say nothing of the immersion break it would cause to Storm Summoners to not be bale to influence it...)

Two things encourage teaming (beyond the pure social side):

1) The artificial mechanism which gives you more XP on a team. By artificial I mean the devs had to spend effort coding this to make it work, with the intent of rewarding team play

2) The natural synergy that develops on a team due largely to support sets. Ally-only buffs are a big part of this, since they allow the devs to give us powerful buffs without making a set overpowered, or resorting to other limitations like long recharges or crashes or whatever.

There should be sets that are poor solo-ers that shine on teams. We should have the choice to choose to make team-oriented characters or solo-oriented ones.

If you want to make a solo-er with a Force Field, make an Energy Aura Brute or Invulnerability/SR Scrapper or something, rather than picking a set intended for team support. (Or invest in IOs and force the game to do what you want, like I did on my FF/Sonic )
If you want to make a self-healer, go Regeneration. And so on.

I use it in combat all the time, often just slotted for one Flight Speed and another one in Swift these days since the base speed got upped.

I don't like using Fly in combat because of the sudden gear shift associated with power suppression - you're moving at base hover speed after an attack, then you're moving at full fly speed suddenly when suppression wears off. It makes it very hard to control compared to Hover's smoother movement.

I also like the defence bonus on characters who I build for defence.

No concept can explain the powerset called Kinetics.

You can heal allies (but only if an enemy is present), you can induce superspeed or density increase in others, you can absorb energy from enemies into yourself and others and you can create a field around your body that violently repels things.

Is it superspeed with benefits like the Flash? Is it energy absorbtion like Sebastian Shaw, Absorbing Man or Rogue? Could the ability to fast forward, slow down or reverse time maybe explain it? Or what??!??!!
I'm pretty sure no comic character has ever had that exact weird grab-bag of abilities.

For Ice/Kin though, I like the idea of an energy organiser, and used this for an Ice/Kin Controller way back. You can take the random molecular motion that is heat, and turn it onto directed motion. If you made all the atoms in an object direct themsleves to the left, the object would move to the left and cool down.

This of course grossly violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is kind of cool. You're decreasing entropy every time you use your powers.

I dont want to come across as a member of the Thunderstrike Marketing Board, but...

I see four missed opportuinites for 6-slotting the Thunderstrike set, and having some extra Ranged/Energy/Negative Defence - 15% to be precise. If you're hovering, and have already taken Weave, thats a huge boon to any solo Defender.

I underrstand slotting Decimation instead, the Recharge boost brings up your Auras more quickly, which is a big deal for any Empath.

Your slotting on Will Domination is odd though. Devastation gives you +Regen (peanuts next to Helaing Aura/Regen Aura), +Health (OK, but hot great) and +3 damage (peanuts IMHO) at the expense of the extra Accuracy and Defence that 6 Thunderstrikes would give you.

If it were me, I'd slot Recovery Aura just with 3 Recharge, and move the extra slots to Subdue, Mental Blast and TK Blast and six slot all four siongle target attacks with Thunderstike. Recovery Aura gives you more end than you can eat even without slotting.

Your global Recharge boost would drop by 18.75%, it is true. With Hasten and what you have left (around 60% still?) Your Aura recharge is going to go from 140 second to 155 maybe? So in exchange for those 15 seconds extra wait for Regen Aura/Recovery Aura to coem up you get 15% R/E/NE Defence and +28% Acc. Maybe a bit less end, but Recovery Aura has a good uptime still.

Your Ranged Def goes from 15% to 30%, which is a lot of avoided damage and mezzes, and also almost one small pill from the softcap, great for EB fights.

Your call, of course. I openly admit to being a bit defence-obsessed, and realise you may have other aims with this build.

Sleep protection?
Oh yeah! I've never understood why this was there, and its a major annoyance.

Defence Debuff Resistance?
It would certainly be nice to not have my main contribution neutered by Earth Thorn Casters for the 5 levels they appear. Could there be problems in giving DDR to characters who already have some defence eg softcapped Blasters or Shield users? Nahh, I doubt it, since FF is going to push them so far over the cap it doesn't matter anyway.
So this one is good for the bread-and-butter SO-using team with an FF-er.

Yes to both.