Local_Man

Silly me -- I should have spotted that. Thanks. I had thought it was autohit until I saw that entry in CoD. But that begs the question, why indicate accuracy of 1.3 when it is autohit?

That's why my Earth/Storm is a lady named "Ella M. Ental." But it means that I have to take the Fire APP to finish out the concept.

I generally thought of it as "Autohit," but the City of Data entry for Tornado says that the pet has 1.3 accuracy, so I'm not so sure. It may be that the combination of its high accuracy and so many ticks of damage means that it WILL hit, but it may not hit on every tick -- kind of like with Freezing Rain. So, that's why I said "nearly autohit."

I'm not sure, so if I ever remember to check against a high defense foe, it may be worth checking the combat log.

A couple of little things to make life easier for a low level character:

If you are in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles (i.e. NOT Praetoria), at level 5 you should go to the next level city zone -- Kings Row for Heroes, Port Oakes for Villains. Look in your "contacts" tab for a Detective for Heroes, a Broker for Villains. Go to that contact to get a Scanner for Heroes, Newspaper for Villains. Then do three missions from the Scanner/Paper. You will then be sent back to the Detective/Broker for a Bank/Mahem mission. See if you can get some others to help you the first time, because if you can successfully complete that mission, you get a "Raptor Pack" as a reward -- it is a jet flying pack that will let you get around much more easily until you can get a travel power.

Then go back to the Detective/Broker, and he/she will give you a new contact for missions.

This works when you are levels 5-10. At levels 10-15, you can get a "Zero-G Pack" that lets you super-jump. At levels 15-20, you can get a self-resusitate power, and at levels 20-25, you get a "team teleport" power. Characters in Praetoria do not have this option -- you can't get a Detective/Broker until you exit Praetoria after you hit level 20.

There are other ways to get a flight pack, including a recipe that can be crafted, or you can buy one from a vendor in a high-level area. You may be able to earn a flight pack from some missions, too. Most people also get a travel power. Travel powers are not "essential," but recommended unless you know how to put together an alternative way to get around.

If you want a travel power as soon as they become available, you need to take a pre-requisite power during levels 6-12, and then you can take a travel power at 14. For new players, I recommend Hover/Fly, but each of the travel power pools have a choice of two pre-requisites for each of the four travel powers. The four are Fly, Super Jump, Super Speed and Teleport. Teleport is the most difficult to use, but the others are pretty easy.

Another thing for lower level characters to understand is the need for Fitness . . . but this will be changing as soon as the next free update is published. Issue 19 (usually called I-19) will include the Fitness pool for "free." But until then, you should plan to include the Fitness Pool when you build your character. The Stamina power will increase your Recovery rate so you don't run out of endurance as much. Take Hurdle or Swift no later than level 16. Then Health no later than level 18, so you can choose Stamina at level 20. Some characters can go without Fitness or can delay it if you know how to slot your powers, but the majority of characters take Stamina by level 20 or 22.

In light of the Dark Melee set, I thought "Punch Line" would be a perfect name.

Most of my characters have names based on puns, but my favorite "joke" character is a young-looking AR/Dev blaster dressed in a pink bunny suit. Wearing glasses, of course. His Battle Cry is "I'll shoot your eye out!" and his name is "Mad Ralphie." I mainly pull him out at Christmas time.

It really depends on your playstyle. Arctic Air slotted with SOs (capped EndRdx and Confuse) is a good power that mitigates about 60-70% of melee damage . . . assuming you spend most of your time in melee, as it is useless outside of its range. Add in a teammate who draws aggro, and you won't get hit all that much. But you have to follow a playstyle of using a ranged control (Ice Slick, but Flash Freeze will work), then run in with AA running while your melee teammate beats up on the foes. Arctic Air becomes more effective if you can fit in the Coercive Persuasion "Contagious Confusion" proc. Then you can try to keep Confuse capped and stay near capped EndRdx, and you can probably fit in a damage proc, too.

Depending on what you take from your secondary, an Ice/Kin should probably plan to take Shiver, too. Some other secondaries have an AoE slow or other control power, but not Kin. That gives you a second ranged control power . . . but the foes will be able to shoot at you -- they just won't be able to shoot again for a while. This is why Ranged Defense is effective. You can Shiver from range, shrug off a few shots, and then run in with AA to Fulcrum Shift and/or Glacier.

Wow, for somebody who doesn't post very often, that was pretty darn clever. A nice way to fit a square peg into a round hole.

If you decide to make him Invuln (which is an awesome set with a much better taunt aura than Willpower), you should look at Call Me Awesome's Guide to softcap an Invuln Tank. He suggests less expensive sets that still work, and I can tell you from how it worked on my Invuln/Axe that it is very effective. Invuln has high Defense AND Resists AND a self-heal for those few times that something gets through. WP has a mix of Defense and Resist and relies heavily on Regen, but a very weak taunt aura that makes drawing aggro a bit of a challenge. But WP may be easier to level up.

Take a look at my Illusion/Radiation Guide, linked in my sig, even if Rad is not your secondary. It will explain a lot of details about Illusion and its attacks, including how to get benefit from the Illusory damage in Spectral Wounds, Phantom Army and Phantasm's Decoy.

The short version is that Blind is essential to set up Containment. Then Spectral Wounds. I strongly recommend Deceive early, but not everyone agrees. Another attack like Air Superiority is helpful leveling up, but it makes you go into melee -- not a problem for some secondaries, and usually not a problem if there are no other foes around and the one you are pounding on is Blinded. Once you get to the APP levels of 41+, then one of the single target blasts will let you have a great attack chain of Blind-Spectral Wounds-Blast-Spectral Wounds. Fire Blast is my favorite, then Ice, but the Blasts from the Psi and Primal APP pools work too.

To answer your question -- Look for missions with Foes who have little or no Mez powers and mostly Smashing/Lethal damage. Those are easy if you are capped to Smashing/Lethal. Battle Maiden and Axis America missions are popular.

Choking Cloud becomes much more effective once you get ED capped Hold in it, and the Lockdown +2 Mag proc works really, really well due to the unique nature of how Choking Cloud works. (80% chance for Mag 1, 50% chance for Mag 2 that can stack with the Mag 1. It adds another 20% chance for an additional Mag 2 to stack, which helps CC hit more often on Minions and Lts, and a chance to hold a Boss.) I make sure that I get capped Hold first, and then use the Lockdown proc before a damage proc.

The other possibility was that his statements were based upon the fact that the -Regen lasts for 20 seconds. So, even if you miss, the -Regen continues until, hopefully, you hit the next time.

And, by the way, there are some auto-hit powers in the game. Radiation Infection and Enervating Field from the Rad secondary. Storm's Snow Storm. A tank's Taunt.