DrMike2000

If you do go Energy/Energy, any stun power can take the Stupefy chance for Knockback IO - that can spice up any Energy Melee build like and Energy/Energy Blaster.

When this goes off (20%) it really lets the target fly as opposed to the wussy Kinetic Combat proc that just knocks them over.

I'd recommend a Storm/Energy Blast Defender.

Fiery Aura now has to compete with Electrical Armour and Dark Armour, and comes up a little bit short. They all have decent resists with an opposing strength and a opposite hole (eg very strong to fire, weak to ice) and a self heal of some kind, a bit of a KB hole and a damage aura. On top of that they get:

Fire:
Burn - which is not what it used to be
Fiery Embrace - great if you choose Fire Melee, less so otherwise
Consume
10% stronger damage aura

Electrical Armour:
Slightly higher resistances
Medium Psi resistance
Poorer heal
End Drain Resistance
Built-in KB protection
A god mode instead of a self rez

Dark Armour:
Mez auras
Built in stealth power
End Drain resistance
Huge Psi resistance

For the 40+ levels, Fire sticks out as the set with less special protection - no Psi resistance and no End Drain resistance. Its two weaknesses, Cold and Psi damage, also tend to slow down Healing Flames, so it gets a bit of a double whammy there.

That said, Fire is still very playable. I'd highly recommend Tough and Combat Jumping, and maybe Weave and building up some defence using IOs, which seems to be your plan.

Combat Jumping and Hover can be on at the same time, so its pretty likely that CJ and Combat Flight can be too.

I love your thread title!

If you're looking to save slots, get rid of the Positron's sets and switch them for four Dam/*IOs frankenslotted.

eg 2* Acc/Dam, 1*Dam/End, 1*Dam/Rech

You have enough Acc bonus from Thunderstrikes, you can keep the Recovery bonus, so all you lose is the Recharge Bonus. Its nice, but not essential to your build aims here.

Then pop these two into Essence Boost.

Health doesn't need 3 slots. You have 15% recovery in set bonuses on top of Stamina, you dont really need that Numina Unique. Add two more to Essence Boost for 5 total, you can evene recoup some Recharge bonus back with Doctored Wounds now.

I'd agree with Justaris, drop the 3 mez resist special IOs.

Add add those 3 slots to Reform Essence. Frankenslot with 4 Heal/Rech's, or pull another slot from somewhere and go for more Doctored Wounds. Maybe just 2 slot Stamina with level 50 IOs?

Definitely uncommon.

Other boards on these forums are full of min-maxers. Its pretty common to see threads on soft-capping defence for Blasters and Defenders, for example. But thats what the forums are for, for obsessing over details.

In game, I see a lot of people with no set bonuses, so I'm guessing they don't pay too much attention to the fine details of their character's performance.

Disruption Field used to draw aggro to the caster, it was changed a few issues back to draw no aggro.

You can now, for example, place it on a Stalker and let them Assassin Strike, and the -Res aura wont alert the enemy. I do this all the time with my Sonic Corrupter.

So no worries there.

My only 50 Tanker is Dark/Energy, and I've played a couple of Superstrength tanks to the mid 30s.

SS is better, and that's before the awesomeness (so I hear) of Footstomp.
But it's not twice as good - Energy Melee is probably 75% as effective at worse. If you enjoy the look and feel of the set (and I do) you're not going to spend every moment of your playtime wishing you'd chosen differently, and rueing the day you picked Energy Melee.
Its probably one of the worse underperforming sets in the game, but its not unplayable by any means.

SS gives you good AoE and a permanent damage and To Hit boost.
EM trades all that for three attacks that deliver guaranteed stun and some ok-ish front-loaded damage. But it looks great doing so.

I'm pretty sure you can't put a Steadfast in PFF. It doesnt take plain resistance enhancements, so I doubt it takes the set ones.

I do remember having a anti-KB IO in there, but it was probably a Karma.

Slotted Dispersion: 16%
Hover 2.5%
Slotted Manouvers: 5.5%
24% vs all

3 Thunderstrike sets (Power Bolt, Blast and Burst): 11.25% vs Ranged
2 Red Fortune sets (in Dispersion and Manouvers): 5% Ranged
Blesing of the Zephyr (in Hover): 3.125% Ranged
+19.3% vs Ranged
= 43.3% vs Ranged

And you havent given up any slots or powers to do this, assuming you want to bubble teammates and attack reasonably well. Well, maybe a couple of extra slots in Manouvers over 3 Def + 1 End, but thats not a massive sacrifice.
You can fit it all in by level 30 pretty easily I reckon.

Get Combat Jumping, or a second pair of BotZ in Fly and youre soft-capped to range. That, or wait for epic armours and stick a Steadfast in.

I went the whole hog on my FF/Sonic - Fighting pool root and got softcapped to Range, AoE and Psi, with 38% or so vs Melee. But that didnt come together till the 40s. It was well worth it though.

Really good point, ketch.

If anyone needs the extra damage, it's Ice Controllers.

I think Mescaline Dreams is a very classy name for the concept.

Mescaline is not widely in use these days. I've mostly heard of it in reference to people like Timothy Leary or Aldous Huxley experimenting with it in the sense of actually believing they mind find something of scientific or artistic merit. In a universe of flying people, psychic powers, magic etc the idea that this leads to an Illusion Controller type character makes sense.

You're very unlikely to run into people in game who use mescaline, or know a family member who has RL issues relating to mescaline and get upset about it. Its about as relevant to todays issues as a Victorian villain called The Laudanum Fiend would be.

Its a completely different kettle of fish from joke names like "I Heart Weed" or whatever.

That's my completely irrelevant opinion. People, including GMs, have all sorts of ridiculous knee-jerk reactions to drug references.
I wish you luck in avoiding them.

I remember seeing a spreadsheet with resistances averaged over all enemy groups, and how much damage you would typically do.

Fire came out around 98% full damage, Smashing, energy and cold around 96% and Lethal bottom of the list at 92% of full damage.

So while lethal is more resisted, it isn't by much. You'll be doing something like 5% less damage at most on the whole, and unlike Psi you're never facing enemies who resist you really heavily.

Knockback is a mez effectively - it puts the character into a state where they can't do anything for a set period of time. The fact it also moves them around is incidental.

It's not outisde of concept either - you are generally more vulnerbale flailing helplessly through the air or having grvaity reversed on you, less likely to dodge a well-placed strike to a nerve point of vital organ or whatever. I've always thought this was the main idea behind Containment - its easier to hurt someone who can't fight back.

I just dont think it would really be that helpful to anyone. Any Controller who can KB targets can already hold or immobilise or stun them in an eye-blink, very possibly mass-immobilise them. There is no build where this would make a huge different to the play experience at all.
The biggest benefit I can think of would be Mind/FF opening with Repulsion Bomb (now reliably seting containment) and Terrify, which still isnt a great change.

Ninja Run is just icing on the cake for going without a travel power.

We already have jetpacks for a price less than some yellow salvage pieces, Ouroborous, and Black Market teleporter temporary powers from day job badges.

Getting around the city has never been easier.

My current villain group of 10 characters have no travel powers - they all use jetpacks and all log out at the markets for the teleporter. I've got the Ninja Run on one account and decided is not worth it for the other (plus, I dont really like the animation).

One of my all-time faves in trying to shoe-horn a character concept into CoH was Rugged Boy.

He's a 37th Century child of space miners, whose craft crashed on a seemingly uninhabited planet when he was a baby, leaving him an orphan. He was raised by native energy beings called Zetans that can bond to human DNA and spontaneously mutate it, giving him a wide array of one-at-a-time superpowers - he has to become "clear" in between upgrades.

Part Tarzan, part Ultra-Boy, partly a poke at Scientology mythology.
I'm at work, so no pictures, but he looked like a cross between Tarzan and Anthony Keidis

I ended up making him Earth Control/Kinetics, with a close up melee style incorporating Jump Kick, Air Superiority and Sands of Mu for Rugged Strength, and the Ethereal Shift temp power thrown in for Rugged Invulnerability, since its very much a one at a time power.
Dual Builds with Ice Mastery and Fire Mastery rounded out the feel that he could switch between a lot of possible powers, and could terraform environments just like a child on a strange planet might.

I would have happily paid real money to have a vet combat pet so he could pop out different semi-visible Zetans to follow him around.

He had seven Zetans permanently attached, whose names were different electromagnetic frequencies, Red Zetan, Ornage Zetan etc for short.
Unfortunately, I got him to 50 (and hence stopped playing him, for that is my custom) just as Power Customisation was introduced. Missed out!

My experience of Elec/Energy (after the I14(?) nerf to Power Boost) was that once I got Power Boost at 28 and fully slotted SC for end drain, I could drain a group of even-con's with a Power-Boosted Short Circuit. +1's required Ball Lightning too (slotted mainly for damage over end drain).

Unfotunately, almost every character I have is fighting at Invincible (+2/x1 these days) by level 28, so the End drain wasn't enough on the +2s and +3s I was facing.

Before this nerf, +2s and +3s could be drained. Why the devs saw fit to further marginalise end drain is beyond me.

Voltaic Sentinel is unaffected by +Damage buffs, quite a drawback for a Kineticist.

I'd go with Hasten.

I dont know if this has been mentioned yet, but twice is better than never:

Custom architect enemies use player powers that tend to have higher end costs than built-in enemies. So end drain can be more effective against them.

I havent really tested this, but heard this repeated on these boards - so it may be worth testing at least.

I played a Kin/Elec to 50, often solo.

My memories of +3 Freakshow groups (for example) were:
Transference the boss from range, Short Circuit as he came into range - he's now drained, and his pals are half-drained. Tesla Cage the next most dangerous, heal myself, Fulcrum, Siphon Speed and Power all in no particular order and then hit Short Circuit when it comes up.

I usually survived this, and couldn't do it wthout End Drain. Both Transference and Short Circuit were both slotted for End Drain.

My first character was a Elec/Elec Blaster, and once I hit 35 I'd use End drain too.

Now, the current state of End Drain powers is pretty poor. I'd say these two builds are the only two who can drain enemies in one attack cycle. Everyone else is relying on Short Circuit coming up again. Elec/NRG used to until Power Boost took a hit.
The whole thing revolves around a single power that has a long animation and requires close range (20 feet, not melee range strictly but close).

My experience is that Kin/Elec makes the best sapper. The single target drain in Transference is that good.

I'd take Combat Jumping for you last pool.
Its 2.5% Defence to all, costs next to no END and provides Immobilise protection.

You cant get in close to heal with Transfusion if you're immobilised.

You can rack up decnet OK-ish Defence as a Kin.

Tough with Steadfast IO (3%) + slotted Weave (8%) + CJ (2.5%) + slotted Manouvres (5.5%) is 19% vs all.
Three Thunderstrike sets adds 11.25% vs Ranged, 30% total.
Slot Manouvers and Weave with Red Fortune and thats 35% vs Ranged.

Melee Defence is harder to come by though.

I'd highly recommend the Dark mastery Epic pool for Oppressive Gloom. You'll be in melee range alot as a Kin, and its hard to build up melee defence, so OG is the perfect complement to your ranged defence. OG stacks with Stunning arrow, and Dark Embrace stacks with Tough. (OK, all epics have a Res shield that does, so exclude that point)

I reckon I'm making 7-10 million infamy a week, just by crafting generic IOs and selling them on one character.

I do it every day while I'm eating breakfast, and maybe once when I get home from work before doing missions. Its keeping my fledgling group of ten villains in Thunderstrike/Crushing Impact level of IOs quite nicely so far.

For a while on Heroes I had a similar scheme with one central marketer and three assistants on my other account and was probably clearing 50 mill a week. That became a bit of a drag to maintain though. And as soon as I hit a billion I switched to CoV and started all over again