EricHough

Copy your character to the test server (link: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/charactercopy.php) and you can use a respec without really 'using' it on live. If you don't have any respecs available, I believe the test server online store doesn't actually charge your card if you by respecs through it, but you should double check on that - I know the beta server store didn't but I haven't actually bought respecs on the test server before, so I am not sure about that.

That 70% figure is definitely a bare minimum - if you are a few seconds late in firing off hasten when it recharges or get hit by any recharge debuffs you WILL lose perma-dom at some point. I found I was comfortable once I got around 90%+ global recharge, there was enough leeway at that point that missing hasten by 5-10 seconds wasn't a big deal and the occasional recharge debuff didn't drop perma hasten.

I am also not sure about that 106% global recharge for perma-hasten figure - my plant/fire dom has 107.5% global and hasten isn't quite perma (with 3 slotted rech), although I couldn't tell you how far off it is - its only a couple of seconds though. I do know my ill/rad controller with 100% global recharge +hasten + AM (for a total of 200% global recharge when everything is up) has both perma-hasten and perma-AM, so somewhere between 107.5% and 130% is the right number for perma-hasten(that doesn't help much, I know :-).

EDIT: I ran the numbers on hasten - it takes 275% total recharge to make it perma, -70% for hasten leaves 205%. 3 L30 common recharge IO's gives you 95.66% recharge after ED so you need about 109%-110% If you upgrade those to L50 recharge IO's you get 99.08% after ED, so you only need about 106%. This explains my dom, who hasn't upgraded her IO's in hasten yet and is only a couple of seconds off perma.

My bane has shatter armor from the patron pool and I use it pretty regularily in my attack chain. I have never seen any redraw from shatter armor or from web envelope, which I use less frequently.

Whether or not you already have a seamless attack chain it will be improved if you can throw shatter armor in, it does the same damage as shatter, except its all up front so you don't have to wait for the DoT to tick, and it has a 20% resistance debuff. I would definitely use shatter armor in my attack chain over poisonous ray - the better DPA, higher upfront damage and resistance debuff make it a much better choice.

I use it as an opener when I am out of stealth or as a followup attack for hard bosses/EB's after doing build up-> shatter (for the stealth strike) -> shatter armor. Tends to drop them fast - for multiple weaker bosses or LT's I will take out the first boss/LT with shatter's stealth strike and smaller attacks, then open with shatter armor on the second LT/boss.

You can always make a seamless attack chain with lower damage, faster recharging attacks. The big attacks are still worth it though.

I have to disagree with this part - as much as these controls are the bread and butter of a plant dom, 6 slots in any power is WAY overkill when you can frankenslot cheap set IO's, unless you are going for IO set bonuses from the 6th slot or you are 5 slotting a set that has a gap in the enhancement values (like obliteration not giving much end redux).

Definitely get 5 slots in seeds as soon as possible - even with frankenslotting you want good accuracy and as much recharge as possible - but 2 Acc/rech/confuse triples, 1 acc/rech, and a couple other doubles will cover everything you need. If you are shooting for early perma-dom and want to put a malaise's illusion set in seeds it might be worth adding a 6th slot for extra recharge, but otherwise 5 is quite enough.

The single target hold really only needs 3-4 slots, since you should be using it as a control and not an attack and it has a 1.2 base accuracy. If you are trying for perma-dom and want set bonuses, put 4 Gaze of the Basilisk in it and call it good, otherwise slot a couple acc/rech/hold triples and 1-2 other dual or triple IO's to fill in the gaps.

All dominators are slot hungry - you need to slot up your attacks as well as your controls so overslotting anything is a bad idea - put just ENOUGH slots in all your powers, but no more. Frankenslotting is a godsend to low level dominators as it allows you to squeeze the maximum enhancement value out of just few slots in each power.

You know, I would buy everything in your list as skippable except mental training - 20% global recharge is NOT something that is easily skipped. You may not be gimp without it, but you are going to have to work hard to make up the difference. I also don't buy your explanation for NOT taking it - can you prove that blood widows DON'T have an extra 20% global recharge?

All that said, play the character you want to play - as long as you have fun its all good. However, I would never recommend a build like that to anyone else and I certainly would not consider it analagous to the huntsman build - since cloaking device and surveillance (all bane powers) are a big part of the build.

I saw someone point that out in another thread just after I made my previous post :-). Its a great addition, glad they finally added it.

Huntsman builds do dip into the bane tree a lot more though - while the only thing they tend to take from the attack tree is build up, taking the bane spider armor upgrade, cloaking device and surveillance from the bane spider training tree is fairly common. The real reason there is a 'huntsman' build is because the main arachnos soldier tree is usually ignored in the classic bane/crab builds because it either duplicates powers in those builds or has redraw no one wants.

A night widow vs blood widow does not have that issue. If folk want to gimp themselves by avoiding mask presence, mental training and mind link from the widow teamwork pool; or slash and eviscerate from the night widow training line and call that a "Blood Widow" thats cool - but it misses the point of the huntsman build, which is to capitalize on fast firing gun attacks in the base soldier tree while still making a highly effective group character by double stacking. The only reason a huntsman skips stuff in the bane tree is to avoid redraw with the mace - my huntsman doesn't even bother with build up since I figure that double stacked assault and fully slotted leadership makes up for it.

I can see the arguement for a totally 'natural' claws widow which would rule out mind link. However, mask presence could just be considered a tech cloaking field, mental training just improved athletic training and the claw attacks in the NW tree are just better versions of the ones in the base widow tree (especially slash). Skipping all of them is only staying in 'concept' if you choose to be narrow about your concept.

For those (like me) who didn't reallize this was there until starcloud pointed it out (thanks Starcloud!) you go to the effects and maths tab in the configuration menu and under suppression, turn on "Attacked". Took me a little searching to find it and it wasn't obvious at first, so I thought I would point it out explicitly. This is in version 1.91 of mids using the 19.11 database version (30/12/10 release).

Widows and Soldiers are primarily positional defense characters, although in both cases at least one of the powers that gives them defense gives it to everything (combat training: Maneuvers). Widows get their base defenses from 2 auto powers (combat training: defensive and foresight), the previously mentioned Maneuvers toggles and then they stack mind link on top of that.

CT: defensive gives 7.5% melee def, foresight gives 7.5% to all 3 positions (melee, ranged and AoE) and CT: maneuvers gives 5% to everything, this is all unslotted. Mind link gives a base 10% def to everything as well - so fully slotted for def, when mind link is up you have as much as 44% to melee, 32% to ranged and AoE and 24% to everything else. Additionally widows can take mask presence - it only gives 2.5% def all when suppressed but every little bit counts.

The usual path to softcapping a widow is to try to get enough recharge to make mind link permanent and pick up some ranged and AoE def from other sources, since melee is softcapped almost out of the box. Perma mind link is fairly easy on a night widow as their version has the fastest recharge (240s vs the fortunata's 300s) and they get mental training for a free 20% global recharge. So a night widow can get perma-mind link if they slot enough def/recharge IO's in ML to ED cap the recharge and pick up about 50% or so global recharge from other sources. Its a lot harder to get perma mind link on a Fortunata - I have never done it so I couldn't even tell you the numbers.

However, one very NICE thing about VEATS is that they get about the best numbers from defensive power pools redside - they get corruptor values for the leadership pool and tanker values for tough/weave, so if you are willing to spend the power picks you can easily softcap without mind link. VEATs also get nice def numbers from the pool powers that normally grant so little def it is hard to notice - combat jumping and hover both give 2.5% def to VEATS.

Here is my current night widow build that is sofcapped to all positions without mind link if you want an example. Note that the numbers look just shy of the softcap on ranged and AoE - I leave mask presence turned off in mids because it adds the un-supressed defense values to your totals when you turn it on, which throws things way off since you get 7.5% def when in stealth but only 2.5% when out of it - so I just remember to add 2.5% to all def when figuring the total.

The actual IO's I slotted for def where fairly cheap - 1 red fortune set, 1 stupify, scirocco's dervish and a steadfast protection +3% def unique. Most of my def comes from the widow def powers + the pool maneuvers, weave and combat jumping.

No, the stealth proc stacks just fine with mask presence, I have one in my nightwidow (an unbounded leap: stealth in sprint) and her PVE stealth is at 70 feet when sprint and mask presence are both running.

The stealth POWER (from the concealment pool) will not stack with mask presence, as they are basically the same power. I don't know about super speeds stealth but I know it stacks with the stealth power and with cloaking device from the blaster devices set, so I assume that super speed would stack its stealth with mask presence as well.

I use synergy for dual boxing and while it makes using a single keyboard a lot easier (thus cutting down on desktop space) I have noticed that CoX has problems with mouse look speed on the synergy client - mouse look runs at hyper speed and the slightest mouse move skews your view angle horribly which is why I only dual box with my secondary character in bot mode, set to follow/buff the primary and throw the odd heal/attack out (the mouse on the synergy server system works fine, its the client that gets hyperspeed mouselook).

I definitely admire those who can dual box full time like phire - I can't split my attention enough even if I had a setup like his.

Have you actually monitored combat stats when getting mezzed through a toggle to make sure your mez protection is suppressed? I distinctly remember Castle saying that while MOST toggle effects would suppress while mezzed, actual mez protection would not. Now, I could be remembering incorrectly and/or the devs could have changed their minds about this but I would want to test it before making a claim either way (and PvP doesn't count - it works differently). The last time I remember having a melee toon being mezzed through a toggle was a claws/wp brute being chain stunned by massed longbow - and I died due to the incoming fire stacked with the -resistance grenades far to quickly to tell if my mezz protection had actually dropped.

As for timing the animation on AD - fire off AD while in attack range of a mob and queue up an attack while AD is animating and then time how long it takes from the start of AD's animation to the attack starting to fire. That should give you a better reading of the actual animation time of AD. It may be that the animation takes 3 seconds but only 1.5 of it cannot be interrupted - or we may have a valid bug.

It also means if you die and are rezzed in the middle of a AD/PB cycle you have no mez protection until it recharges and if your mez protection happens to run out while you still have no end, you are just as screwed.

While the OP's complaint was WAY over the top, it IS a pain to be constantly interrupted by AD or PB firing off in the middle of a fight and the benefits that click mez protection afford you are a lot less than they used to be before toggles where changed to only drop now when you are end drained. In addition to the above mentioned 'no mez prot after death' issue and having to constantly cast them, you also have the following problems:

- pre-SO you generally can't slot enough recharge to keep your mez protection permanent

- SK down far enough and enhancement slotting that previously made AD/PB perma is no longer enough

- If you are in an AE mission and fire off AD/PB just before exiting the mission its buff is wiped and you can't recast it until it recharges.

- Recharge debuffs can prevent you from keeping up your mez protection.

Now, a lot of these issues are ameliorated by the fact that a def based set is not going to get hit often, especially if you are softcapped, however for my first couple of bullet points above (low level, pre-SO's and SKing) you are a lot more likely to NOT be soft-capped, or even near it.

Really, the only thing you gain these days from a click mez protection power is lower end cost overall, which is balanced by the fact that you eat a nice chunk of end (10 points) when you do put it up; double stacking it, which is balanced by even more time spent NOT attacking as you cast it more often; and the previously mentioned coverage while end drained.

Some folks may thing those balance out, I think the click protections fall short of toggles - not short enough to care if the are ever changed but still short.

There are no blueside VEAT specific arc contacts, nor are there redside HEAT specific arc contacts so the answer is Alan desslock's missions will not be accessible if your VEAT changes to a hero/vigilante. You are not 'locked out' any more than any other villainous AT is locked out from redside content if they become a hero - you can always switch alignments back to villain/rogue and get access again.

Its really a lot simpler than it seems - if you want to do villain story arcs you have to be a villain/rogue, if you want to do heroic story arcs you have to be a hero/vigilante. The ONLY exception is Task/Strike forces which anyone who has acess to the contact can run and the few true multi-alignment missions, like the Winter event missions.

Right click on the global window tab, select edit tab from the dropdown. You get a window with the chat channels that display in the global tab on the left and all the other channels in the right. Just select "Hero Zone Event Messages" from the available channels and add it to the selected channels.