Justaris

I should be there this afternoon. Work's been busy recently, but I want to keep trying for this.

You may count me among your honored number, good sir.

I'm in.

I'll be there.

I have everything required on my Rad/Rad defender, Tetujin, but I just recently got my Sonic/Sonic corruptor Resonance Engine to +3 and if I can get him a t4 lore and an assault hybrid, I'll be bringing him instead. Either way, count me in.

Joined

I'm not generally much for social media or Facebook, but I've made an account and signed up.

I've seen several threads along similar lines appear in the days since the unfortuante announcement and I decided to post one of my own. I made this decision largely for my own catharsis, but for those of you I've come to know over the years perhaps it'll provide some small amount of closure as well.

Once I decided to post a thread like this of my own, I pondered where to post it. As some of you may know, I don't play on one single server as many others do. I have dozens of active and semi-active characters across nearly all the NA servers, so for a while I thought about posting this in the City Life section... but no other server's community welcomed me the way that Triumph's has. I've become good friends with several people in the Justice, Victory, Protector and Pinnacle server communities to name but a few, but this server was always more home to me than any other, so ultimately there was no other place to post than here.

I want to say thank you, first and foremost, to the server and everyone on it. I want to thank Sayaki, Taryn, Snow Globe, Arcanaville, Emerald Fusion, Kay Parfait, Magenta Bolt, Blondeshell, B. Samson, Seethe, Jakara, Jack Virgo, Accelerator Ray, Tyrus, Ultrabatz, Pine, Dawun, Otelo, frost-kid, Banebritch, Plothammer, Pheonix of Syrinx, Knight Hawk, Tahquitz, Ventus vis Vires, to name just a few of the people I've met on this server over the years. I know there are many more.

I also want to thank the many people on this forum who've been part of the ongoing effort to make this the most helpful and welcoming community of any MMO I've ever seen or heard of. Specifically I want to thank TonyV for everything he's done to support the game (and continues to do), I want to thank LadySadako for making me interested in being part of the forums in the first place. I want to thank Arcanaville for, well, everything. I want to thank Stalemate for NPC. I want to thank Dechs Kaison for introducing me to my favorite powerset and directly contributing to me making my favorite character of all time. I want to thank Madame_Pistachio for inviting me into PERC, and thank everyone who has contributed to making that great organization what it is. I want to thank Masque for encouraging me to try PvP in this game after I had written it off, and giving me some great times as a result. I want to thank Bambi, Elegost, Bug, Gris, Arky, IceKnight,Philly and Smallz and everyone else in PvP Boot Camp for helping to teach me the ropes in that arena. I want to thank Malachite Green for helping me when I was just starting out in the game. I want to thank my first SG leader, Morrigan of Morrigan's Ravens on Infinity, who has long since moved on from the game. I want to thank Violet_Samurai who kept that SG going and inspired me to found my own. I want to thank @Boresight who kept that SG going even after my work schedule forced me to step aside.

I'm going on rather at length here, I realize, but there's a bit more I want to say. I want to thank @Easter Bunny and @Crashmonkie, who stopped playing a while back to have a baby but were some of the earliest recruits into the regular static team group Gray Accord that I still participate in today. I want to thank @MTS, who has been instrumental in keeping the group going. I want to thank UG - for reasons those in GA will already know. I want to thank those who've joined the group in latter years - Jakara, MagentaBolt, Jack Virgo, StoneJaguar, Shockabilly, CrimsonCapacitor, Valkayre, Nekoran (aka Pur), Rebarbed, Roach and Moon.

Last but certainly not least, thanks to @Nemorin, the love of my life. I was partially responsible for getting her into the game and it's meant at least as much to her as it has to me. All of us are crushed at this news.. well, I don't have to tell any of you reading this how that feels. While we're not together any longer, I know she feels the same way I do about this. We may move on to other games, we may not, but nothing will ever be what City of Heroes has been for us.

This post has mostly been for me, to try and express some of what's been weighing on my mind since I got this news. I'm hanging around right up until the end and fortunately my VIP status will be current well past that point. I plan to enjoy this game as much as I can in the time we have remaining. There will never be anything quite like this experience for me. While my work leaves me little time to pick up and try new MMOs, those I play with most have been discussing where we go from here. We all plan to keep playing CoH until they shut down the lights, but thereafter it's an uncertain future. We're considering Secret World, so perhaps you may see me and some of the rest of us there, time will tell.

I hope this hasn't been too self-indulgent. I've always tried to keep my discourse on these forums civil and in the spirit of good community, so I hope you'll excuse this exercise in sentiment. As if that wasn't maudlin enough, I'd like to close with a bit of verse that's been much on my mind in recent days.

Well said, Saya.

I'm still reeling from this news. Not sure what I'll play next, never really liked any other MMO enough to play more than a few weeks.

Justaris@juno.com if anyone wants to get in touch with me. I'll miss this community more than I have words to express.

I wouldn't recommend skipping PGA, especially on a Defender. Maybe on a Corruptor or Mastermind, but even then the -Damage effect is a pretty significant debuff to have, and the AOE sleep is nice when you're in a small team or solo and can actually make use of it before teammates break the sleeps.

That said, if you're killing things too fast to need the debuff and you're playing more a damage role than a debuff role, I can see skipping it. It really shines on high difficulty tough mobs and hard targets like GMs or AVs, but might not be helpful every spawn the way Acid and Disruption arrows are.

Congratulations! That's a nice look too.

If you're going for a generic IO build for now, that makes things considerably simpler. I'll include some specific suggestions for such a build below. As for what you ought to be slotting for in terms of Sets (if and when you choose to do so), that's a bit subjective as to what's 'best', but I would recommend an approach to softcap Defense and hardcap Resistance wherever possible. The most popular alternative to that would be to go for recharge and runspeed to make Granite's penalties less severe (on the theory that Granite's level of protection, while it can be improved upon, is 'good enough'). I went for maximum survivability for my Stone tank - I build that way on all my Tankers, but not everyone does.

As for the generic IO only build, the only major things I'd push for would be taking Rock Armor much earlier as I said before and making sure you get at least five slots in Granite (six would be better). You want to try to cover Resistance and Defense slotting. You might mix in a few procs and some individual set IOs for frankenslotting rather than going for a strict generic IO build - it wouldn't be that much more expensive and would be much more effective. For example, in Granite you might go for a Titanium Coating: Res/End, an Aegis: Res/End, a Red Fortune: Def/End, a Luck of the Gambler: Def/End, a Luck of the Gambler: Def/End/Rech and a Titanium Coating: Res/End/Rchg. You're not going or any particular bonuses there but you're getting very good enhancement of Granite Armor. You can do something similar in Earth's Embrace using Heal/End/Rech IOs from the various heal sets, and so on.

As far as needing Hasten, no, I wouldn't say you need to have it in the build. It's certainly helpful but by no means required.


EDIT: Just saw that you posted a new generic IO build while I was responding. I'll look that over later on and give you some feedback on it. And no, there is no difference for a proc at level 35 and at level 50, other than the fact that you can slot the lower-level proc earlier. This is why lower-level procs are worth more than level 50 procs.

Given that you posted it under guides, I was sort of looking at it in that way, and I do think the info would be useful in a guide-like way for those looking for this sort of info.

I can see it as a personal accounting too, just seems like an odd place to post it if that's what you were going for. Still, it's good info for folks to see.

Didn't really know him, but my sincere condolences to his friends and family.

Sad news to lose someone so early in his life.

You can count me in for this.

Tetujin, Rad/Rad Defender. I have t4 Cimeroran Core lore, Assault hybrid and tons of Ultimate inspirations and team damage inspirations on deck.

Plenty of 'em.

You should see a major difference going from t3 to t4, especially in the primary focus for the Alpha (endurance reduction, in the case of Cardiac), since more of the effect is bypassing ED at the higher tier.

If that's still not doing it for you, then I would seriously consider adopting Ageless over Barrier - that, or giving your build a hard look to see if you can make it more efficient for endurance usage. Or both. It also bears mentioning that if you are getting any significant amount of Defense from inventions sets, the radial path for Ageless can give you Defense Debuff Resistance to help maintain those numbers. If you don't have a lot of invention-derived Defense then the core path with its +recovery is probably a better bet to address your endurance woes.

If the t4 Cardiac solves the problem, however, then Barrier is a solid choice for a Corruptor giving you some very handy survivability.

While it's certainly worthwhile to hit the six Freedom Phalanx TFs to get the accolade, if you're going to use TFs as your preferred leveling tool I would strongly recommend to anyone that they work in the Moonfire TF for the Vampyres and Warwolves (the badges for each being requirements for another Accolade, the Atlas Medallion). The Katie Hannon TF is another good one since its badge is required for yet another useful Accolade (Geas of the Kind Ones), but like the Cavern of Transcendance or the Ernesto Hess TF, Katie Hannon requires a certain story arc be completed to unlock it. Only the TF leader needs to have the unlock, however.

So if this is meant to be a TF guide, I think I'd include all the TFs of interest. For reference, that would look something like this:

• Level 10-15: Positron TF, part one
• Level 11-16: Positron TF, part two
• Level 12-15: Cavern of Transcendance Trial (requires unlock)
• Level 15-20: Syanpse TF
• Level 20-25: Penelope Yin TF
• Level 20-40: Admiral Sutter TF
• Level 23-28: Moonfire TF
• Level 24-34: Respec Trial (first tier)
• Level 25-30: Citadel TF, Ernesto Hess TF (Hess requires unlock)
• Level 30-34: Katie Hannon TF (requires unlock)
• Level 30-35: Manticore TF
• Level 34-44: Respec Trial (second tier)
• Level 35-40: Numina TF
• Level 35-50: Imperious TF (requires access to Cimerora)
• Level 38-40: Abandoned Sewers Trial
• Level 39-41: Eden Trial
• Level 40-44: Dr. Quaterfield TF (Shadow Shard TF #1 - this is a long TF)
• Level 40-50: Sara Moore TF (Shadow Shard TF #2)
• Level 44-50: Respec Trial (third tier), Justin Augustine TF (Shadow Shard TF #3), Faathim the Kind TF (Shadow Shard TF #4)
• Level 45-50: Ms Liberty TF (formerly Statesman TF), Lady Grey TF, Dr. Kahn TF
• Level 50: Apex TF (incarnate TF), Tin Mage Mk. II TF (incarnate TF)

I'd actually be somewhat interested in seeing more times, if you have them available, just to give players a general sense of how long the various options run. You can see how many missions are in each by checking Paragonwiki, of course, but even so it may be helpful to be able to compare in one place an average time for the various TFs. I don't generally pay much attention to that sort of thing myself, but I can see how others might find it helpful.

There are several Tip missions which feature Frostfire at various points along his transition to being a Hero. Tips are broken down into level ranges, and you'll encounter missions featuring the character arc you summarized in the corresponding Tips for that level range.

Yeah, Chill of the Night is excellent. I always advise anyone looking for Dark Servant slotting advice to max out the ToHitDebuff aspect first since 1) it's very strong on the Dark Servant and 2) he's always doing it. Slot for heal or hold if you have room left over after you max out the debuff.

Twilight Grasp is a powerful heal and it's nice to have a pet that can use it along with yours, but as others have said you can't control when or how often Fluffy will use the heal, so slotting predominantly or exclusively for heal is not the best approach in my estimation. I don't prioritize slotting on the hold for the same reason - sure, in theory I could stack holds with Fluffy, but he may not use Gaze when I want him to. That said I usually try to spare the slots to put at least one set IO in to partially enhance the healing as I'm fond of resummoning Fluffy in the middle of mobs to help out a struggling Tanker or Brute. Even then, Chill of the Night is likely more helpful than the heals.

Are you looking for what works best on SOs, or are you going to be investing significant amounts of influence for top-tier IO builds? Or something in between?

If you're willing to go all-out for the best stuff, I would recommend Dark Armor/Titan Weapons for your tankiest tank. You're going to have to build carefully for endurance management, but the end result is a monster and has very few weaknesses. If you take it a step further and take the character through the full Incarnate process, those weaknesses can all but disappear.

This build looks a bit incomplete - you have a few powers like Mud Pots and Brimstone that are on generic IOs and you haven't slotted Granite Armor fully. It's also not immediately clear what your overall build goal is here - the only common thread I see among the Sets you've chosen so far is endurance recovery and to a lesser extend accuracy, but that might be coincidental. Also, you mention being on a budget but you've included the Panacea proc in Health - that can be pricier than some purples, or was the last time I looked.

• Granite Armor underslotted. This is a very powerful Defense and Resistance toggle, the power that the entire powerset is balanced around (for better or for worse, but that's an issue for another thread). You should be slotting both aspects of the power. I suggest you six-slot this using Defense/Endurance and Resistance/Endurance set IOs to cover both aspects fully while still getting good endurance reduction.
  
• Taking Rock Armor very late in build. This is one of your main armor powers and you've delayed it very late in the build. You're going to want this before level 10. If you intend to be in Granite all the time and this is a respec build, then this might not matter, but in that case I wonder why you have the other armors at all. I personally don't like always-in-Granite stone builds, I like to function outside of Granite, but it is a build choice some people make.
  
• IO Set bonus goal?? I alluded to this above. I'm not really sure what you're going for here. I would suggest that you try for a softcap Defense/capped Resistance build with regeneration and recharge as secondary goals. Alternatively, you might build for recharge and runspeed to offset the effects of Granite as much as possible. I'd need to understand your goal before I can help you achieve it. It's also not always strictly necessary to even have an overall goal if enhancing certain key powers will get you what you need - I'd encourage you to 'frankenslot' these powers with IOs from different sets, as with my suggestion above for Granite.
  
• I would suggest putting the Kismet IO in Weave instead of Minerals. You'll be running Weave all the time, in or out of Granite.
  
• Any reason in particular for not having Hasten in the build? You're going to want powers like Earth's Embrace and Ice Slick coming back fast, to say nothing of the recharge penalties you suffer while in Granite.
  
• Are you intending to go Incarnate with this character? You hadn't selected an Alpha for this build.
  
• You're also not using any of the Might of the Tanker ATO enhancements. I would recommend at least the +Resistance proc.
  
• On the subject of Ancillary pools, I would recommend Earth over Arctic for Quicksand, which should combo very nicely with Ice Slick. It's also very useful to have a ranged hold, but either Fossilize or Arctic Mastery's Block of Ice can give you that.
  
• If you're not already using it for Teleport, I recommend using the mouse click bind since it makes using the teleport reticle interface much easier for quick, effective teleporting. The bind is: /bind SHIFT+LBUTTON "powexecname Teleport" Then you hold down the shift key and left click where you want to go, and you will teleport there. This saves you the step of having to place the white reticle, since the left button executes it at once.
  

I'll keep an eye on the thread for your responses - once we have a better idea where you want to go with this build, I'd be happy to help you further, and I'm sure others around here would too.

I'd pretty much agree with what's already been said. For a TA/A Defender, I would say that Entangling Arrow, Flash Arrow, Aimed Shot and Stunning Shot would be powers you could skip.

Entangling Arrow is good for bringing down fliers, but unless you're taking it to get a good Set Bonus I would call it skippable. Flash Arrow used to be quite buggy so I hadn't had it for a while, but I've played extensively with other players using it. It's good for preventing accidental aggro and the to hit debuff is nice, but not all that strong. Aimed Shot is your standard slower, slightly more damaging version of the starting blast power and since you have to take Snap Shot, I'm okay with losing Aimed Shot. As for Stunning Shot, I don't generally go in for single-target stuns on my Defenders, especially if I don't have any other stuns to stack with it.

Explosive Arrow is very good for a Defender with or without the Overwhelming Force proc depending on whether you want to do KB or KD, but doesn't pack as much damage as it does on a Blaster (it's a must-have for an Archery Blaster), so that might also be skippable depending on how you prefer to play. I skipped it on my Defender, though I'd reconsidering it now that we have Overwhelming Force. Ranged Shot is another power I initially skipped, but with FastSnipe coming in i24 that's another one I'm considering bringing back into my build.