Maelwys

I have only two level 50 Blasters.

The first is Fire/Ice. A ranged AoE damage monster with Shiver and Ice Patch. And Rise of the Pheonix slotted for Damage and Recharge (it's not a coincidence that his RoTP recharges on nearly exactly the same timer as Inferno...)

The other is a Sonic/Elec, a melee resistance-debuffing Single-Target damage monster with capped Smashing/Lethal defence, plus Siren's Song and Hibernate.

Both toons can comfortably solo Elite Bosses, and if I had to place their survivability I'd put them roughly on-par with my Fire Tanker (who took Air Superiority, Tough, Burn and Energy Torrent - he's not short of mitigation either). I have a heavilly-IO'ed Spines/DA Scrapper, which feels rather squishy by comparison (at least against anything other than Psionic damage mobs - and he took Tough and Energy Torrent too...)

There are a lot of good Controls available in Blaster powersets even before you start layering on the IOs. My Fire/Ice Blaster in particular is probably my most fun toon to play with just the regular IO sets (no +defense, just accuracy and recharge) and regularly ends up being the highest contributing damage dealer on teams as well as a solid pseudo-controller/debuffer (not to mention being a total Duracell bunny. "Rise of the Pheonix" needs a good nerfing!!).

Whilst my Spines/DA can approach my Fire/Ice's AoE damage output, it needs to be a certain type of mob (low Lethal resistances) and needs much more work - to kill any given mob, the scrapper requires [two cones, two damage auras and one PBAoE] versus the Blaster's [One Cone + one Ranged AoE] or [One PBAoE and one Self-rez].

And don't forget the Spike damage potential. Aim + Build Up > just Build Up.

To draw another parallel - my "Namesake", a Katana/Regen Scrapper, is roughly as survivable as my Sonic/Elec Blaster. They can both cap defence - the Blasters' Smashing/Lethal versus the Scrapper's Melee/Lethal - they both have "GodMode" powers - the Scrapper's Moment of Glory or Instant Healing versus the Blaster's Hibernate. The Regen's two Heals versus the Blaster's Aid Self, Cone Sleep and Melee Hold (I didn't take Screech, but did take Shocking Grasp). Their ST and AoE damage output are even even roughly similar when you factor in resistances to Lethal Damage and Build Up + Aim. And the Scrapper has five sets of Purple IOs and damage Procs up the whazoo, whilst the Blaster has an eclectic mixture of cheapo +S/L defence-granting Frankensets.

Now I'll readily admit that there are certain combinations of Blaster powersets that perform poorly at certain things. However, the same is true for scrappers. There is simply no way that a well-specced Broadsword/Regen can come close to the sustained DPA of a well-specced Katana/Regen, for example... their attacks simply take too long to animate and any Damage Procs in the Katana attacks will seal the deal... but in Spike damage - read: "one large swing" rather than "optimum damage chain over over ten seconds" - the Broadsword will win out over the pointy stick.

Apologies for the rather long post.

(In closing, in response to a comment about energy torrent: I love Energy Torrent from the Scrapper Epics!! It's knockDOWN and very, very nearly the same damage as Throw Spines. Which should really say something about Scrapper AoE potential... completely rubbish at spike damage, but very decent if you let them position themselves right and chain a few attacks together... I do wish Blasters had access to the Scrapper version...)

Personally I'd build for +HP, +S/L resists and +Energy/Negative Defence.
Aiming to get fairly near to the HP cap, and hit the 45% E/N "Soft Cap".

Limit-wise, 45% Defence (Technically it's higher but 45% is where the "Hit chance" of the vast majority of PvE foes gets completely floored), 90% Damage Resistance and 3212HP are the Tanker "Caps" - you can only have one of evey "Unique" IO, and 5 of each normal "Set Bonus" - example, 5x +10% Regen bonuses and 5x +12% Regen Bonuses will all stack, but 6x 10% Regen ones will not - you'll only get benefits from the first 5-of-a-kind.

The below build is an example, The most expensive IOs would probably be the Steadfast +3% Defence Unique and the Kismet +6% ToHit Unique, but neither should really be bank breaking. E/N Defence is over 45% when Hover is on, and S/L resists are over 70% with "Tough". You'll Regen roughly 75 HP per second with one foe in your taunt aura.

In the below build I've dropped Focussed Accuracy and Laser Beam Eyes in favour of taking "Tough" to increase the S/L resistances, but if LBE is a concept power (and you don't mind inflicting weapon redraw on yourself each time you use it!) then it can be swapped back again. "Focussed Accuracy" is a waste of endurance with the equilvilant of 2 Accuracy SOs in each attack and the Kismet Unique - some +Perception is granted via the cheap Rectified Reticle IO in "Build Up", which is plenty for PVE.

Willpower only has one real disadvantage that you need to cover - The RTTC Taunt Aura needs two level 50 Taunt Duration IOs in order to keep higher-level foes (+4s, +5s) properly taunted. Both Willpower and Axe can get away with little or no global Recharge (it only effects Willpower's Rez and Axe's attacks recharge fairly quickly anyway).


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Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Mutation Tanker
Primary Power Set: Willpower
Secondary Power Set: Battle Axe
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Fitness

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Mind Over Body -- TtmC'tng-ResDam(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(3), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(3), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(15)
Level 1: Beheader -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(7), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(42), Mako-Dam%(46)
Level 2: High Pain Tolerance -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(17), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(17), Heal-I(45), Heal-I(45), Heal-I(45)
Level 4: Gash -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(7), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(42), Mako-Dam%(46)
Level 6: Indomitable Will -- EndRdx-I(A), Ksmt-ToHit+(46)
Level 8: Rise to the Challenge -- Dct'dW-Heal(A), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(9), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(9), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Taunt-I(40), Taunt-I(42)
Level 10: Hover -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(43)
Level 12: Quick Recovery -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(13), EndMod-I(13)
Level 14: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(50)
Level 16: Taunt -- Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(A)
Level 18: Heightened Senses -- RedFtn-Def(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(19), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(19), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(25), RedFtn-EndRdx(43), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 20: Swoop -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(21), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(21), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(25), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Mako-Dam%(37)
Level 22: Build Up -- AdjTgt-Rchg(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(23), RechRdx-I(23), Rec'dRet-Pcptn(43)
Level 24: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 26: Tough -- TtmC'tng-ResDam(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(27), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(27), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(33)
Level 28: Whirling Axe -- Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(29), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(29), Erad-Dmg(31), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Zinger-Acc/Rchg(34)
Level 30: Fast Healing -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(31), Heal-I(31)
Level 32: Strength of Will -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(33), ResDam-I(33)
Level 35: Cleave -- Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(36), Erad-Dmg(36), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Zinger-Acc/Rchg(37)
Level 38: Pendulum -- Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(39), Erad-Dmg(39), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Zinger-Acc/Rchg(40)
Level 41: Resurgence -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 44: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 47: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(48), Heal-I(48)
Level 49: Stamina -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(50), EndMod-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet

Whee! No More _EU for me!

For the vast majority of PvE play you should have no trouble. That's the main benefit of Regen having such a high level of flat-rate damage mitigation.

When facing a LOT of foes at once, or heavy-hitting bosses (such as those MA Council ones or Vanguard) or EBs/AVs, you will likely need a little extra mitigation. It's up to you whether you choose active mitigation such as knockdown or chewing insps, or passive mitigation such as extra Defence/Resistance via set bonuses or toggles. Or adjust tactics - you could "joust" foes by jumping in and out of melee range, or simply wait for Dull Pain + Instant Healing or MoG to recharge before fighting something that tough...

Concerning Knockdown, Air Superiority is very good at keeping Single-Targets flipped, and Energy Torrent is very good at negating "Alpha Strikes" from tightly-packed groups of foes. Both do fairly respectable levels of damage. With Fire/ I'd probably go for Energy Torrent to stack it with Fire Sword Circle (ET as you're jumping into a group to knock them down, then FSC when you're in the middle of them. Works great for my Spines/DA).

Really depends on your slotting (Procs mainly) and recharge.

Unslotted, the highest DPA attacks in Katana are Soaring Dragon, Golden Dragonfly and Gambler's Cut. Gambler's Cut starts to have a slight edge on Golden Dragonfly when you factor in Damage Procs. Sting of the Wasp comes in at a distant 4th, then Flashing Steel, then Lotus Drops, then Divine Avalanche.

I generally try and aim for as close to GC --> SD --> GC --> GD as possible, as it's your optimum ST damage output chain. To squeeze a Divine Avalanche in there, you'll need to activate it at a minimum of once every five seconds for the buffs to overlap if you're double-stacking it. The ideal place for that in the above chain would probably be alongside SD, as it has a slightly lower animation time than GD and you'll be using it every 4 seconds or so anyway...

If you're at all worried about flying foes hovering out of range, grab a Web Grenade temp power from Siren's Call. If you end up making use of it (I can't see it happening that often myself) then you might be able to justify picking up the Weapon Mastery Epic Pool Version. Ranged Immobilise that inflicts -fly on foes.

The only Scrapper I currently have with ranged attacks is my Spines/DA. I'll use Impale occasionally, but more often than not I stick to just Throw Spines and Energy Torrent - as an opener on a tightly-clustered mob before I jump in and start using PBAoEs. There's very few things that you'll need ranged attacks to hit - Hamidon Mitos, Outdoor Rularru Wisps/Eyeballs and Outdoor Sky Skiffs are the only things that spring to mind. And the Nemesis Staff or Blackwand Veteran Powers do a good enough job on their own versus those...

It's one of those Multi-purpose builds where you can be either a really good anti-aggro controller, a really good "Buffer/Healer" or a hybrid. Good hybrid builds are possible but require more skill to play, as well as being much more expensive.

No, you won't be soloing AVs, but depending on your build you might be able to tank them with PA and Phantasm's Decoy. You should be able to contribute decent damage to taking one down, depending on build + slotting.

I've an Illusion/Empath which has Perma-Adrenalin Boost and is a few seconds short of Perma-Phantom Army. It was rather expensive, but makes a very good all-round support toon hybrid.

Blind and Deceive are the control powers you'll be spamming. The Purple Confuse Proc in Deceive will turn it into an AoE control. Spec Terror and PA are your main AoE controls, Flash has a fairly slow activation time for what it does but it might be useful depending on your playstyle (it doesn't suit mine). Empathy Powers are the usual slotting. The two Auras, Fortitude, Clear Mind, Adrenalin Boost and Heal Other being the main contenders, with at least one Endmod in AB to let Blasters recover End through a Nuke. Healing Aura makes a nice self-heal and Absorb Pain is for when your tanker is about to get two-shot.

One of the reasons for still going for an Empath Controller over an Empath Defender is the Controller Epic Pool version of Power Boost - it's up twice as often, which means twice as many power boosted Heals or Forts. It still helps to take Invis these days, but with the +Stealth Procs there are other ways to get there that don't cost as much endurance as Superior Invisibility.

I've not bothered with Empath PvP in ages since Diminishing returns came in. In days of old Ill/Empath was a good PvP support toon because of Superior Invisibility masking it from most Villains in Sirens Call. I suppose it's be just as good as any other Empath these days. Illusion has a fairly wide range of controls to fall back on too.

When a Tank Over-Aggros that many mobs, that Tanker deserves all they get.

Honestly. Aggroing the entire room-of-death with just RTTC and Gauntlet, on an Energy Melee toon? That tanker is a moron, and you're better off without them. No single tanker, let alone a WP/Energy tanker can hold that much aggro. Two groups from that room at once are fine if you're aggro-heavy, all 5 from the central area at once are not. You're talking upwards of 30 mobs, which unless you have rain or slick powers will quickly overrun your team. Maybe, just maybe, if the controller had been on the ball, the tank had securely held one aggro-cap's worth of mobs, the blasters could "joust" and the rest of the team were all defence-softcapped then they'd have been ok. Maybe. But from the OP the tanker comes across as a glory-hunting pillock.

ForceFielder deserves Kudos for quick thinking. Tanker deserves a slap upside the head and pointed in the direction of RTTC's activation and duration times. Want to bet it was unslotted for Taunt Duration and they were fighting +2s or higher too...?

Personally I'm still partial to maximum damage output and +Regen rather than scraping together a little mix of Defence or Damage resistance (which frankly /Regen doesn't need, and Katana/ even less so with Divine Avalanche to fall back on...) enough recharge for Perma-Dull-Pain is certainly nice to have though - about 55% Global Recharge with Hasten and Dull Pain properly slotted.

The build my own Kat/Regen is using is below, it's been tweaked to rely primarily on a GC-SD-GC-GD-GC-SOTW chain for ST damage (GC is the second highest damage-per-activation-time attack in the set when Procc'ed up), with FS/Lotus/GD for AoE damage and DA for defense (when double stacked, you'll be at the defense soft cap to lethal and melee typed damage).

It was put together a few issues ago. There was a guide kicking about on the EU boards which corresponded to the Proc slotting that I might repost at some point (GC is spammed so often that you'll virtually always have the -resist proc active on a tough-to-kill single target, and all the other non-Smashing/Lethal Damage Procs help out). These days it might be better to stick an Obliteration set (or at least five pieces of it) into Lotus or FS for the extra Damage/Acc/Recharge bonuses instead of the extra +Regen from Scirocco's Dervish.

The main damage mitigation comes from Perma-Dull Pain and all that extra regen... but you have DA, Instant Healing and MoG to fall back onto whenever you're fighting anything that can two-shot you.

I've killed all the AVs in the Preatorian arc with this build, and tanked several of them too. It is, however, expensive. Some Hami-Os, Two sets of Purples, four LOTGs and the three Heal Procs. A less costly option would be to just grab the Lady Grey Procs and dump an Achille's Heel in GC, then take Hasten and slot more inexpensive set IOs as-normal.

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New boards looking good so far. Few teething problems with dead links to images etc. and the _EU _NA suffix business... but if those are the only kinks to work out, good job folks!

's why knockback is bad on the towers. AoE Damage = Fine, but AoE Knockback = Bad. If you knock repairmen from one live tower towards another dead tower they'll rez the dead one. They've got a real work ethic going.

The bug was that they were repairing the towers regardless of whether they (the repairmen) were dead or not. e.g. If you killed them, their healing power still triggered. Haven't tested it since the last patch though.

You will not be able to log into the US servers if you have a EU account - you need to use the EU.exe launcher shortcut as others have suggested. This is in your CoH directory - usually "C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.EU.exe"

Run the client in Windowed mode if you're having graphics resolution trouble. It's one of the options under the advanced Graphics settings, or you can change it manually via the registry at HKCU\Software\Cryptic\EUCoh (change fullScreen to 0). The game sometimes doesn't like very wide resolutions but seems to run on most standard 4:3 and 16:9 ratio resolutions without any problems providing your video drivers are robust.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes... let me bold this for you:
Outside of TFing or farming it takes very long to raise a million Inf. I'm not taking into account playing the market: to this day I have yet to have a purple recipe drop on any of my toons or a merit roll that will yearn a considerable amount of Inf.

I solo mostly, if not exclusively (and not by choice, mind you). It takes me 2 to 3 playing sessions to get a million Inf. A session for me is 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Again, for the casual player, that's not buttons. That's hard playing time.

But of course I can see for people who have no other responsibilities and/or have more playing time that can be seen as a mere pittance. For people who don't have to work or run/help run a household and can play all hours of day it is very easy to rack up those sums.

And again, solo, without farming, I have yet to receive a purple drop or merit roll that will earn me that much Inf.

[/ QUOTE ]

From my above post: "To put this into perspective: solo, without farming, you can easilly raise several million influence just by playing through a standard level 50 mission arc and not skipping the "kill alls" (Hero's Hero, anyone?)."

Heros hero takes me 2 hours tops, solo, on a non-optimised character (SOs or common IOs). I never walk away with anything less than 5 million inf, just through mob killing. And that's in Supergroup mode. I don't ever run this arc for Influence, but for fun, accolade badges and/or merits. The influence gain is a byproduct.

If you define "casual play" as attending costume parties underneath the Atlas statue, or perhaps doing one lone mission a night, then yes, you're never going to get any money without winning said competition or playing the market minigame so you earn while you're offline. If instead you run arcs, even solo, then you'll be raking in the influence even if you just vendor any drops and run in SG mode.

The caveat is that you really need to run these on a high level character to get any amount of influence off enemies. But even the act of levelling up a standard new toon to 50 should gain you several hundred merits and over a hundred million influence (I have personally tested this) if you just play the game normally and solo all the way to 50 using normal mission arcs, selling the drops as you go.

As an aside, concerning farming taking up gameplay time:

I'm a few years past studenthood now, so usually I only have a few nights a week to spend on gaming (and even then, typically nothing longer than a 2-3 hour block post-6pm). This means that things like long-term farming parties are out for me, likewise for most of the longer TFs (apart from the odd weekend).

I farm when I need influence, which generally occurs whenever I get a new character to level 50 and want to fully equip them with set IOs. I don't "hoarde" influence or farm it for its own sake. The only recent exception to this has been PvP recipes, which I farmed for a period of two weeks after seeing that the current return on that activity was too good an opportunity to pass up (indeed, for just a few hours work each night over this period I netted over 1.5 billion influence worth of drops, which should fully outfit at least two new characters).

When I was experimenting with farming these PvP recipes, I found I could farm drops continuously for a total of 2 mins active work every 30 mins (including the time it takes to zone into an arena instance). The rest of the time I was free to go watch a DVD, or make the dinner. There are many options available for influence making to those that don't want to spend all their time hammering buttons. And this sentiment is coming from someone who had one of the first fully-IO'ed-out-and-built-for-farming Spines/DA's on Defiant.

(Such as playing the market, mainly. The return is currently so good on farming PvP recipes because they are new, and prices have yet to stabilise. I fully expect their prices to plummet soon except for the few uniques)

[ QUOTE ]
Aha! And therein lies the fallacy: do you know how long it takes me or a casual player to raise those amounts? I wouldn't dismiss them as nothing quite as easily...
Outside of TFing or farming it takes very long to raise a million Inf. I'm not taking into account playing the market: to this day I have yet to have a purple recipe drop on any of my toons or a merit roll that will yearn a considerable amount of Inf.

[/ QUOTE ]

Anything under about 10 million is buttons in today's game's economy. And that is even before you factor in the selling of drops (a lot of common level 50 salvage is going for 10,000-100,000 these days alone) or using of any tickets/merits accumulated over the course of an evening's gameplay.

To put this into perspective: solo, without farming, you can easilly raise several million influence just by playing through a standard level 50 mission arc and not skipping the "kill alls" (Hero's Hero, anyone?).

Of course, you could do a few teamed TFs, or MA arcs for tickets, or Ouroboros Arcs for merits, and get the loot faster. Or even just leave a DPS character fighting a friend's in the arena for an evening...

I've more influence than I can store on one character, and I'd still not pay 700 million for an IO.

100 Million is about the limit, and even then it'd probably be better to buy it with Merits (the exception is Purples as these are so rare and practically unfarmable, I'll pay 150-200 million for these if I need to).

PVP recipes really don't offer that much benefit, except for the +3% defence one and possibly the +Heal/+End Proc even though it spams green numbers above your head). But I'd much rather farm these as drops...

The +3% defence one is very useful at the moment as it lets a lot of combinations hit the 45% softcap cap without sacrificing other bonuses. That's the only reason it's so pricy. The +Heal/+End one is just a glorified Numina Proc that heals you for a tiny amount (And uses the buff scale, so Defenders get more HP than Tanks) rather than uping your regen. Defence-based builds could drop Aid Self for it, freeing up two power slots.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Frankly, this is one of those words where the American usage makes more sense than ours.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly - an evolution of language

[/ QUOTE ]

Evolution takes place by following the principle of "survival of the fittest".

Until the majority of your country can outrun a (Beef)Burger, I think we can all agree that your average American isn't going to win any fitness tests.

Therefore they lose by default. We don't even have to go into the whole "The only culture America has is the sort you find growing in Petri dishes" argument.

Terribly sorry old bean...

After personal extensive testing, they seem to be roughly equal drop rates. So far I have received a good mix of Melee/Ranged/AoE damage sets, plus Heal, Defence and Resistance sets. And a few from the Hold set.

Only one really big-ticket item (the chance for +Heal/+End one, which is currently going for around 350-400 million making it the second most expensive IO blueside after the PVP +3% Def one) which hasn't sold yet. But even discounting that, I've made roughly 1.5 billion influence in the past week from farming PvP IOs in the afternoons... it's certainly currently a nice little earner...

And no, they drop anywhere you can PVP, including the arena. The only caveat seems to be that you need to be "in range" of normal drops on the person you're fighting (eg. a level 50 player can get them off another level 50 player, but not a level 5 player)

In terms of drop chance, expect one every 100 kills or so. After you get one you will NOT get another for at least 10 mins of game play (it's certainly time limited - closest I've seen were two drops 15 mins apart).

Forgot to add - keybinds make life much easier if you're getting fed up with apllying bubbles and buffs.

I have "Target Teammate" bound on Numpad1 to Numpad8 on all my toons, my Sonic Defender uses "/" to toggle_on the ally-allied debuff AoE, with "-" and "+" for the two Bubbles, Clarity on "." and Aid Other on Numpad0. Tapping the right Ctrl button toggles on all his personal toggles (shields, leadership etc) sequentally one by one using XX_toggle_on$$YY_toggle_on.

All my main attacks are still on the bottommost tray and bound to the standard 1-0 keys, but Liquefy and Sonic Cage are bound to the numpad (* and Enter respectively) as they're more "supporty"...

Sonic/ shouldn't be getting mezzed by anything other than sleep attacks (meaning Freakshow, Carnie Illusionists and Rikti Mesmerists, mainly) due to Sonic Dispersion...

Sonic's main benefits over Forcefield are Clarity and the two -resist debuffs. Liquefy is also situationally either pants or superb. Sonic also offers a lot of personal +resistance to stack with the Defender Epic shields and/or "Tough" from the fighting pool - it's quite possible to hit the Defender S/L resistance cap.

Sonic gameplay really boils down to running Sonic Dispersion constantly; Clarity on the Empath (premptively on others if you can be bothered or there are sleep mezzers about), ST -resist debuff for bosses, AoE Anchored -resist debuff on a teammate always (I often find that adopting a scrapper works better than a tanker), Bubble everyone every 4 minutes and use Liquefy if the tank gets into trouble (the -defence and -tohit are great, the knockdown is pants). Sonic Cage is rubbish in PvE apart from against the Arachnos Flyer and Certain EB confrontations (LGTF!).

Personally as a Sonic/Rad I'd either go for the Dark or Psi Epics - Dark for the +damage buff and good all-round resistance, Psi for Dominate - (a high damage, low activation time hold and is spammable!) and the shield to fill your only remaining resistance "hole".

For comparison, I quite enjoyed my Sonic/Elec's ride to 50 (Elec being even less damaging than Rad!) and he even saw his share of soloing!! It does take a bit of creative slotting and the willingness to play "team support" more often than other Defenders though. I took Fitness, Leaping, Medicine (Aid Other/Aid Self) and Leadership (Assault/Tactics) and was usually quite busy on teams.

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That said, even with mez protection i still get held/immob at times but thats ghay [censored] grounded for you.

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Mez protection doesn't exist in standard PvP at present, aside from Knockback protection.

It's all mez resistance now. (Protection = you don't get mezzed unless they overcome it. Resistance = you still get mezzed but for a shorter time, the duration reduction depends on how high your mez resistance is)

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the majority of players are American and, well, probably not that clever. There, I said it!

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And said it wrongly

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That's right, you said it wrongly. I think what you mean to say is, "All americans are fat, stupid and think that France is a third world nation".

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Fixed.

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Thanks

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They also habitually butcher the English language (which, lets face it, is a wee bit of a [lady-of-negotiable-affection] already). And they're bad at Maths too. HINT: the guy with the most votes is meant to WIN...

And they invented the RIAA, which should be considered grounds for a lengthy public flogging.

Also, despite what they might have you believe, their national pasttime is actually played with Lawyers (which, incidentally, France abolished in 1789) instead of bats.

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I thought it was saving Europe?

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They'd need to find it first.
On a real map, without using Wikipedia.

(Nice Godwin attempt though. That's the real reason why the Yanks were so late to join in during WWII by the way... they actually started at the same time as everyone else, it just took them a year or two to figure out that Hitler didn't come from some place in Wisconsin )

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the majority of players are American and, well, probably not that clever. There, I said it!

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And said it wrongly

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That's right, you said it wrongly. I think what you mean to say is, "All americans are fat, stupid and think that France is a third world nation".

[/ QUOTE ]

Fixed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

They also habitually butcher the English language (which, lets face it, is a wee bit of a [lady-of-negotiable-affection] already). And they're bad at Maths too. HINT: the guy with the most votes is meant to WIN...

And they invented the RIAA, which should be considered grounds for a lengthy public flogging.

Also, despite what they might have you believe, their national pasttime is actually played with Lawyers (which, incidentally, France abolished in 1789) instead of bats.