Local_Man

I agree that Char is far superior to Ring of Fire, but Char and Ring of Fire do the exact same damage. Both have 5 ticks of 6.73 damage unenhanced at level 50.

They really don't compare, as they are generally used for different purposes. Ring of Fire in low levels is mostly a damage power that sets Containment. In upper levels, it can be used for Immobilizing bosses and AVs. Fire Cages is an essential power to combine with Flashfire.

Eventually, this is a nice power for the full Efficacy Adaptor set -- if you don't have a lot of global Recharge, you can leave off the EndMod/Acc and put a common Recharge in the 6th slot, but 6-slotting that set gives you a 5% Recharge. You want AM up as much as possible, and it is worth 6-slotting it.

I think 2 EndRdx is really needed, but a third has very marginal benefits. This power uses a LOT of endurance, and I generally recommend waiting until after Stamina to get it.

Slotting for Damage is a waste. Flashfire needs Acc, Stun and Recharge. EndRdx is nice to have, but I only include it as part of an IO set. Since it is an opening power, endurance usually isn't an issue when you use it, and I don't want to give up any of the main three for EndRdx.

It really depends on how much you use it. Unlike most AoE control powers, EM Pulse does NOT have the 20% Accuracy penalty that Cinders and Flashfire have. Two accuracy is nice, but not essential. Also, the hold duration is already very long, so you may not need to slot for much Hold Duration. However, the Recharge is very long so if you use it a lot, then Recharge is key. I see some people slot this for Endurance Mod for its End Drain -- that is a complete waste because by the time the hold wears off, the endurance lost will have been regained. Slot for some Acc, Some Hold and a lot of Rech if you use it a lot -- I mostly keep it in researve, so I find 4 slots is enough.


Assault and Maneuvers will add to the already massive endurance drain of Hot Feet and Choking Cloud. I wouldn't consider adding the Leadership toggles unless you have a bunch of Recovery from sets or teammates. Even then, I find Fire/Rad to be a tight build -- maybe after I-19.

Radiation Infection and Ling Rad are essetial powers to me. Ling Rad is really important to go after AVs, to overcome their Regen.

I have tried the team teleport trick -- personally I was not impressed, as I found that we took a lot of damage before the hold from stacked Choking Cloud hit. I prefer to Flashfire+Fire Cage from range and then run in. However, I know that some people seem to like team teleporting a team of Fire/Rads -- It is just about the only use for the power.

Agree on Tactics -- it is a mistake.

As far as End Game slotting -- Enzymes in Radiation Infection are great -- that Hami-O provides ToHitDebuff/DefenseDebuff/EndRdx -- in three slots, you can fully cap all three aspects of RI.

The Gravitational Anchor Chance for Hold proc is wonderful in Fire Cages -- it is worth the price of a purple. The Lockdown +2 Mag proc is especially good in Choking Cloud due to the unique way in which Choking Cloud works with two chances for stacking Mag. The proc can help you hit a lot more foes -- but fully slot for Hold Duration first, and get as much EndRdx as you can in there, too.

The downside of using Endo and Perox Hami-Os is that you give up IO set bonuses. Still, using Hami-Os you can slot Char with 1 Acc/Dam, 1 Acc/Mez, 2 Dam/Mez, 2 common Recharge -- that gives you capped Hold and Damage, plus good accuracy and great Recharge. It is up to you whether adding all that extra enhancement is worth giving up set bonuses.

In Fred Saberhagen's Book of Swords series, one of the twelve magic swords is a "healing sword" named Woundhealer. Stab somebody with the sword and it instantly heals them.

My favorite scene with that sword is where a guy is trying to escape a huge group chasing him. He runs to a cliff, shoves the sword through himself, then jumps off the cliff. At the bottom, he dusts himself off, pulls out the sword, and runs off.

So, at least there is precident in literature for a healing arrow or bullet.

Actually, all three controller sets have AoE Immobs which will neuter both Ice Slick and Earthquake. Unless you have a plan and some significant coordination, you can pretty much expect Ice Slick and Earthquake to be useless most of the time.

You will have two ranged AoE Stun powers (Fire's Flashfire and Earth's Stalagmites), but Ice doesn't have the same benefit. Ice mostly relies upon Slows, the knockdown in Ice Slick and, if you choose to go melee, the unique slow/confuse/afraid control of Arctic Air.

For that third character, one interesting choice might be a Grav/Storm or Grav/Cold. I love my Grav/Storm as a solo character, and I can see some interesting synergy that could be used. Gravity adds some pretty good single target damage, which is something that trio is lacking. Storm adds more damage in the later levels, and gets Freezing Rain/Sleet much earlier than Cold. Wormhole into the Fire/Rad's Hotfeet+Choking Cloud? Yes, please! Rocky and Singy for tanking? Plus Grav's AoE Immob does NOT prevent knockdown, so it could be used with Earthquake (and Freezing Rain/Sleet). The trio would have THREE AoE stun powers, too.

By taking Air Superiority, I can skip Ring of Fire and still solo fairly well -- of course, three vet attacks help, too. I think Air Sup has a lot of benefits. Since I'm usually in melee anyway, Air Sup allows me to knock down any foes not subject to the -Knockdown of Fire Cages -- which gives Choking Cloud a little bit longer to hit a hold. The damage is all up front instead of the DoT from Ring of Fire and it recharges very quickly. With Ring of Fire, the foe is immobilized and taking Damage over Time -- and can shoot at you during that time. With Air Sup, he takes the damage up front and can't shoot at you while he gets up off the ground. The difference in damage is pretty small: 33.65 over 5 ticks for RoF, 30.45 in one shot for Air Sup -- both get doubled for Containment. Both have pretty much the same cast time and Recharge, but Air Sup has a slightly lower end cost (6.5 vs. 7.8 for RoF).

As for the APP set . . . I went with Psi for Indomidible Will, Mind Over Body and Psi Tornado. (Then I took Bonfire at 49.) IW is the key, and the others are just helpful. Still, the knock-up from Psi Tornado is quite nice. I'm not interested in World of Confusion because the AoE is just too small. With I-19, I'll probably take Bonfire sooner, fit in Mental Blast, Mutation and I'm undecided on the third . . . RoF, Smoke, Recall Friend or even Fallout (slotted with a single Acc so that it can be used mostly for its debuff) are all options.

Radiation has two toggle foe-anchored AoE debuffs, Radiation Infection and Enervating Field. Dark Miasma has one, Darkest Night, which is mostly a ToHit Debuff.

But, yes, the toggle debuffs work the same way. If you want some tips on choosing your Rad debuff anchor, my Illusion/Radiation guide has a section on that. Just click the link in my sig.

One aspect of AM is a large mez resistance -- it doesn't keep you from getting mezzed, but the mez wears off quickly and the recharge from 3 AMs allows you to re-toggle immediately. And that can help you get by until level 41.

And frankly, I think a FRAD team is fun . . . just to see everything drop so darn fast. We like the challenge to see if we can set speed records for ourselves.

Yeah, I didn't want to call him on it when he said something nice to me at the end, but I didn't buy it either. Virtue and Freedom are the most populated servers, and it is hard to imagine how a "reputation" could get around an entire server. And even harder to imagine how a "reputation" for using Deceive would be viewed as a negative by any but the most uninformed players.

I can't tell you how many times I have responded to a global channel call for TF players, and I offer to bring any of a bunch of characters, that I get a request for the Ill/Rad. Most competant players know how good an Ill/Rad can be, even using Deceive.

I guess the folks who hate confuse powers are going to refuse to team with Illusion Controllers and Mind, Plant and Electric Controllers and Dominators? Illusion's confuse power is only single target, while the others all have AoE confuse powers.

Ever played on an all FRAD team? Even three of them together is amazing. Three AMs give a huge damage, Recharge and Recovery boost -- and is able to be kept up permanently with some vigilance. One of the three always has Flashfire up . . . in fact, you could easily have a cycle of hard control with 2 Flashfires + Fire Cages or 1 Flashfire + Fire Cages + 1 Cinders or 2 Cinders -- then 3xHot Feet +Choking Cloud Everything is held and melts quickly -- not even counting the 9 Imps. Most of the time, you don't have time to use the debuffs because everything dies so quickly. If anybody takes any damage at all, you have 3xRadiant Aura to heal them very quickly.

Are you sure about this? I'm believe that the Nictus cannot heal off of the Phantom Army. Phantasm, yes, but not Phantom Army -- or Spectral Terror either.

I know for sure that Ghost Widow cannot heal off of Phantom Army in the Statesman's TF.

But Freezing Rain is a somewhat unreliable knockdown, allowing the foes to take shots at you. Yeah, the debuffs are great. But you are giving up some of the benefits of Static Field since the Rain/Sleet will overcome the pulsing Sleep. Other sets (Rad) can apply the debuffs without waking up the foes.

If you are looking for more than one scrapper that can team up together, then Shield Defense is great thanks to Grant Cover. When Shield Scrappers have Grant Cover and stay close together, they get significant defense bonus. You will find that once you have 3-4 Shield scrappers (or tanks or brutes) with Grant Cover, you will already be softcapped on Defense pretty early.

My buddies and I decided to do a team of Shield scrappers. Two of us were Broadsword/Shield, and two were Dark Melee/Shield. As previously mentioned, DM/Shield adds some ToHit Debuff to boost your defenses. It also has a heal power to make up for the fact that Shield does not have a self-heal. The main weakness is a lack of AoE.

The Broadsword is also a great primary for Shield. It fits theme-wise, and has three AoE powers (a PB AoE, a very wide cone, and a very narrow cone). Most important, it has Perry which handles your melee Defense. Because you have Perry, it is fairly easy to use IO sets to soft-cap the defense on a BS/Shield because you only need to focus on Ranged and AoE Defense. A single Perry puts me over the soft-cap for Melee defense. My BS/Shield is as tough or tougher than many tanks, and I have tanked with him many times.

In which case you will also be giving up three more power choices that would have come available.

Lots of people (a) are happy with their builds and see no reason to do a respec, since they see no need for three "free" power picks that will only have one slot; (b) never or almost never play their level 50 characters; or (c) don't want to bother re-planning and respecing a character to change the build since the additional powers may be situational or otherwise of limited value, i.e. too lazy.

I plan to work my way through all my characters, using this as an opportunity to re-think my builds. Most of them have one or two situational powers that I would have liked to have taken if I had room . . . now I'll have room.

By far the best answer, and what I was thinking when I saw this thread. Warshades and Peacebringers (and VEATS) have access to content that no other AT can access. And the Kheld storylines are longer than the VEAT ones. Khelds can also access all the content available to other ATs.

Those Guardians usually fire off AM as soon as they are allerted to foes nearby. The best way to get the buff is to sneak up close to them while invisible and then Deceive them. As soon as Deceive hits, they consider other Rikti as foes and fire off AM.

Electric Control has a power, Static Field, which boosts the Recovery of teammates while the teammates stand in the Field -- the amount of Recovery depends on the number of foes in the Field. Electric Control also has a really interesting chaining Confuse power that does not draw aggro, just like Deceive, Mind's Confuse and Mass Confusion.

If you are looking for Inf, you would do better to play the market than Farm. That way, you can actually have fun playing the game rather than get caught in the grind of farming. Take a look at the guides in the Marketing forum.

And folks aren't trying to be unhelpful -- there are tons of Fire/Kin threads if you just search.

Start out by just making a character and playing. Pick anything that looks like fun. Go through the Tutorial and read everything.

As others have said, a Scrapper or Brute is a good one to start with. But feel free to try out the other ATs. I started with a Katana/Regen scrapper. Then my Ice/Ice Blaster was my first one to get Fly. Then I made an Invuln/Axe tank. Then a Dark Miasma/Elec Defender -- I thought I had found my favorite with the Defender. Then I made an Illusion/Radiation Controller to be a sidekick for the Defender . . . and I liked the Ill/Rad so much, he became my main character and my first one to 50. On the way, I made lots of other characters.

If you don't like it, delete it and start another. If you like it, keep it around and still start another. Take a look at the Guides for hints on good powers and how to make your character better, but be careful . . . many of the guides are aimed at max, end-game characters instead of leveling up.