Mephe

This thread below has some interesting information about burn and putting recharges in it. It seems most now agree burn can be stacked. Personally I thought it did because it seems to have more floating numbers for the overlap time you get with haste.

Burn math

Because the above post will eventually get auto deleted some day I will give a summation:
With haste the most DPS is 4 damage and 2 recharge.
Without hast the most DPS is 3 damage and 3 recharge.
(much like any controller summoned pet, its all the same math)
The biggest drawbacks are:
Increased endurace usage to get increased DPS and
Decreased amount of time you can use for other powers like secondary attacks, healing flames etc.

Personally I think 6 damage is best but the good news is you have options that can work with your style.

Overview of the Fiery Aura primary:
Fire – the one tanker primary that is split almost 50/50 offense/defense
Offensive powers include – Blazing Aura, Burn, fiery embrace, and consume.
Useful defensive powers include – Fire shield, Plasma shield, and healing flames.
Situational (junk for many) powers – Temperature protection, and rise of the phoenix.

Why do many consider Fire tanks to be the most balanced tanks in the game?
As with any game/battle that rewards you by defeating a foe in combat you need either overwhelming offense or a good mix of offense and defense, the fire tank has a good balance of offense and defense. Neither the offense or defense is “capped”; both work hand in hand to give an efficient exp/time investment. Other tanks are almost all defense and the way COH is currently working it is just not needed in most situations. Overwhelming offense is the name of the game in most exp gaining situations. Sun Tzu would be proud.

I3 or Tanker Love fest
After I3 a lot of the complication was removed with using burn. Now you can just turn on your shields and either use BA or your attacks to keep mobs in the burn patch.
I3 also removed a lot of weaknesses (sleep/hold) that made fire tanks not so tanky.

Blazing Aura (BA):
Brawl Index(BI) = .6111 Fire to each mob in its AOE that it hits
Endurance usage per second (EPS) = .75
A blast of fire radiates (about 15-20 feet diameter) from your body and pulses every 2 seconds. This power has gone through a few tweaks since the release of the game and at each stage it has been improved. It is now at the point that most people agree it’s a mandatory and a near set defining power. Along with the excellent constant AOE damage for relatively low endurance, it also has the punch-voke effect to all mobs in its radius of effect. Some people claim that the punch-voke effect hits even if the fire damage misses.
Because this power has 2 very important uses for any tank I recommend this power be 6 slotted. There are 4 useful enhancements to put into this power.
Endurance recovery – One SO reduces the endurance usage down to .56 (.75 / 1 + .33), this is a bit more manageable.
Accuracy – One SO or 2 DOs or 4 trainings will put this power above 100% for even mobs.
Damage – 6 SOs = a 200% damage increase so .6111 * 1 + 6*.333 = 1.83 BI , so if your brawl hits for 30 damage your BA will hit each mob in its AOE for 55 damage. That’s not gonna take down anything right away but this is almost like free damage.

Taunt Increase – I have not seen any numbers for the taunt time of each Blazing Aura tick, but with 0 taunt increasers in this power even +3 Bosses stick around for the full burn patch. The main reason to put taunt increasers in this power would be to become a more efficient herding tank that has to jump from on group of mobs to another. Mobs outside of BA’s AOE will quickly target other members of your team so its important that you round up all the mobs and keep them in the AOE. My guess would be the taunt time is equal to the tick time of BA (around 2 seconds), so even 6 SO taunt increasers would only give you about 6 seconds. I personally like to make sure all the mobs are close and have all damage in my BA.

Blazing aura is a power you can use from level 1 to level 50 and therefore I recommend it be your first power you 6 slot.

Q: How the heck am I gonna take down anything doing such low and slow damage?
A: Fire tanks even at low levels are the master of AOE death. Large groups of greens and blues in PP/Hollows/Boomtown are your best source of solo exp if you don’t want to run to your missions. I personally recommend joining some larger balanced teams and doing door missions in the hollows, which to me is the most fun.

Q: Scorch has a BI of around 3 shouldn’t I just slot that up instead of blazing aura?
A: You can do anything you want but I believe a fire tankers strength shows when they are solo in hazard zones or in large teams. These 2 places mean a large concentration of mobs per spawn, and therefore AOE damage will ALWAYS out damage single target damage. 3/ .611 = 5 so if you are hitting 5 or more mobs with BA you are out damaging scorch. BA also ticks every 2 seconds and scorch can only be used every 3-4 seconds. Scorch uses more endurance per second than BA does, so in all categories if you have more than 5 mobs BA is a much better attack. At low levels I feel you only have 5 slots for damage and I think all 5 would best be used in BA.

Fire shield (FS):
Fire/Smash/Lethal resist : 30%
Cold resist : 10%
Disorient protection : maxes out at 35 (mag 15?)
EPS : .41
A fiery sheath surrounds your character and protects them from the most important damage types in the game. The one change that fire shield got in I3 was the addition of disorient protection. As your fire tank gains in levels this protection increases. Previously this protection was included in healing flames and that was pretty bad, because you always had to use healing flames BEFORE you started a fight when you probably had full hit points. The amount of disorient protection you get with this power is enough to almost never have to worry about getting disoriented. I hear the new war wolves have a ranged power that can disorient if its stacked enough, but to stack it enough you would have to herd them into a pretty large group, and keep them at range.
Slotting fire shield:
The only slotting that makes sense is 6 slots of all resist. The EPS is not high enough to sacrifice the loss to resistance.
6 SOs for Fire/Smash/Lethal = 30 * 1+ 6*.2 = 66%
6 SOs for Cold = 10 * 1 + 6*.2 = 22%
6 Trainings for Fire/Smash/Lethal = 30 * 1 + 6*.05 = 39%

Q: But Mephe I thought tanks cap resistance to 90% how the heck are we suppose to get 90%?
A: Ahh yes the Fire tanker conundrum, take em down faster than they can take me down or dip into the fighting pool to give us some assistance. More about the power pools later.

Healing flames (HF):
Heals about 20%? of your HPS
Toxic resistance (New for I3!) 20% for 60 seconds(stackable!)
Recharge time = 60 seconds
Endurance per cast (EPC) = 15
How lighting yourself on fire with these special flames heals you I have no clue, personally I would have liked all incoming fire damage heals you for 60 seconds, but that’s just me. This is an excellent power though. The heal helps increase your tanking potential both at low levels when your shields suck and at high levels when 50+ +3 mobs are slowly lowering your health bar. This is not a power you need to six slot right away but it one that you should 6 slot by 50.
When you do the math on this power the most heal over time is 4 heals + 2 recharge + perma haste or 3 heals + 3 recharge.
I do not recommend putting endurance reduction in this power because the recharge time is too long to worry about 15 end.

Temperature protection
Fire resistance 20%
Cold resistance 10%
Auto power
Wow each power set needs a stinker and this is Fiery Aura’s stinker. The fire protection is only useful when both your fire and plasma shields are down because with those shields you have capped fire resistance. The 10% cold resistance would be nice if a larger percentage of mobs did cold damage. As the game is now post I3 pre I4 I see no reason to take this power. The only reason somebody would have to take this power is if pre level 22 they wanted more fire protection (before they can get SOs to cap fire) and they at 24 respeced out the power. I would not even advise in doing that.

Q: Why don’t the devs fixs this obviously bad power?
A: Well not being a dev I don’t know, but play a Fire Tank and then play a Mind/Emp controller and tell me Fire tanks need more help. Don’t forget to change your forum handle because burn wont have anything on the flames you will be catchin.

Consume:
BI – 1.111 fire AOE
Recharge 180 seconds
EPC 2
You send out a blast of fire about 15-20 feet around you and all hit by this fire fuel your endurance for more attacks. Even without any endurance increasers in this power hitting 3 even con mobs will refill your entire endurance bar. The only downside to this power is the horribly long recharge time. If this recharge time was 90 seconds I would say Fire tanks don’t need stamina, but at 180 seconds you just can’t get it to recharge fast enough to fuel your endurance usage once you have all your toggles. How do I know this? I went 33 levels on my fire tank without Stamina only using Haste and Consume to refill my endurance. I didn’t use BA at all (back then it was just damage), and I had to watch my endurance usage all the time. Once they allowed respecs I picked up stamina and I have to say it’s a big relief. I still can easily run my endurance down, but with consume 3 slotted and perma haste I have never run out since getting and 6 slotting stamina. I don’t have ANY endurance reductions in my powers except for acrobatics. There is a good reason everybody loves the epic power conserve power and that’s because the games pace picks up with the more endurance you have. Is endurance management a fun part of the game? Personally I like the faster pace and I don’t think managing endurance adds to the game’s challenge other than figuring out how to fit stamina into your build. Expect some major changes to endurance in the future of COH, the pace of the game helps differentiate it from other MMOGs.
Slotting for consume:
1 SO Slot for ACC or 2 DOS or 4 Trainings
All other slots should go into rechange.
You can put endurance recovery increasers in here for good effect, but you should always have so many mobs around you at all times that it’s just over kill.

Q I see that consume does AOE damage, should I slot damage into it?
A You can but that would be a Bad Idea™. Damage on this power is low and its use is really to give you end not to hurt anybody. But with fiery embrace and build up this can do some nice AOE damage; just don’t slot it for damage!

Plasma shield:
Energy/Neg/Fire: 32.5%
Hold/Sleep protection : variable but they max out at 35(15 mag?)
EPS: .41
The other set defining shield for fire tanks. I3 turned this shield into a sometimes useful shield into a must have it or you aren’t a tank shield. The addition of sleep and hold protection to the fire aura set was a godsend. Prior to I3 anything with a sleep power would be near insta death for fire tanks and thus we became the masters of cherry pickin street mobs in hazard zones. This lead to my eventual shelving of my fire tank until after I3 was released. In that time I took a level 1 Ill/Rad troller to 43! I imagine if this shield was like it is now prior to I3 I would have a level 50 fire tank now. Life is cruel sometimes.
Slotting plasma shield:
6 resistance SOS = 32.5 * 1+6*.2 = 71.5%
Notice with fire shield you now have 66%+71.5% = 137.5% to fire and thus temperature protection is just junk.
This power should be 6 slotted around level 30 because that’s when you start running into a lot more energy attacks. Without the 71% resistance to those attacks Ritki will chew you up and spit you out at range.

Q: Should I get this power at level 12?
A: Tough question, and the short answer is yes. It’s a good power and the sleep/hold protection will help ya out in those rare cases you have to fight things pre level 22 that do sleep or holds. Dropping your shields in a battle is almost like death because in most cases you will have 10+ mobs all wailing on you. If you don’t think you need sleep/hold protection before 22 then I say hold off until your 20s, but no later.

Burn(Burn or NerfFireTanksNowClubPosterChild)
BI: estimated at .2777, but in 10 seconds it does about 45 ticks
BI@10 seconds = 12.5!
BIper second (BIPS)= 1.25
End cost = 7.5
Rechange = 10 seconds
Base ACC (unenhanceable = 95%) (speculation)
Burn….. wow burn. It is the set defining power for fiery aura. Without this power the whole set would be just another crummy scrapper secondary, worse in total defense and usage than any other scrapper secondary. Notice the BI of 12.5, this is like a blaster level 32 power but it takes 10 seconds to do that damage, so when you look at damage per second it’s not all that exciting and that’s where our defenses are required. In order to get a mob to sit out the total 12.5 you gotta make sure they hang out in the burn patch for 10 seconds. In that time they are going to be using all their powers to send you to the hospital. The 95% accuracy means that this power is great for +1s, +2s but after that … not so good. You can’t add accuracy to this power so Fire tanks have a sweet spot of herding +1 minions/lieuts and using burn to melt em all away. Most people believe that this power is a summon (cast it in the water and you will hear a splash), and that when you summon one if another was already there it will disappear. Phantom army has much the same behavior so it’s a reasonable theory.
Slotting:
6 damage and anything else is a Bad Idea™.
Once you get this power at 18 (and you should get it at 18, all slots until 23 should go into this power. Its convenient that at 22 you can put damage SOs in this power and your path to the fire side will be complete.

Q: If burn is so good won’t it be nerfed in the future?
A: Short answer is no clue, I am not a dev. IMHO I don’t think so; it has already received a large nerf in I1, and a couple of tried and failed nerfs in I2 and I3. I think the devs are happy with how this power works for the time being. The BIPS is I think lower than what any good scrapper can do for 10 seconds (not AOE though) and you have to compare our damage output to that of a scrapper because we certainly don’t have the defenses to justify being called a tank.

Q In the 1.0 guide you had a large section about using burn. How do I use it now?
A Burn is now much easier to use. Here is the order…
See a group of evil mobs that you think you can tank for 30 seconds.
Turn on BA, FS, and PS.
Run twords them.
Drop burn when they are right next to you.
If you want you can use taunt but its not really needed.
If anybody is still standing drop burn again.
No more healing flames, no more provoke…. Easy.

Fiery Embrace (FE):
+100%damage fire 30seconds
+100%damage non fire 10 seconds
Recharge: 180 seconds
Endurance 11.5
You’re cooking with gas now. A buildup like power that fits better with the fire tanks burn em over time approach. The major hindrance to this power is it has no effect on burn. Yeah burn doesn’t need much help but with the only in set benefit to BA, RotP and consume its sorta lacking that you really need this power oomph. Its sorta like an expensive slow to recharge no accuracy expensive buildup if you don’t have fire attacks, and therefore you should only get this power if your secondary is fire. Guess what this guide is for Fire/Fire so we will be using it in our builds.
Slotting: Anywhere from 0 to 6 recharge reduction slots is useful depending on how much you want to use your secondary attacks.
6 SO recharge + perma haste = FE up every 48.64, that’s 18.64 seconds after the effect goes off that its back up. Not perma but not to shabby. To put it in perspective its like adding 3 damage SOs to all your fire powers while it’s up. This combined with build up and your secondaries will make you a reliable scrapper in a fast moving team.

Rise of the Phoenix (RotP):
BI 4.0268 (fire)
Recharge: 300 seconds
Umm… yeah if it wasn’t for the fact that we don’t care about debt at 50 I would say this is another stinker in the fiery Aura. Any power that requires debt in order to function is a bad one in my book. Awakens are easy to come by and don’t cost a precious power slot. I do hear the animation is nice on this power. I3 did add in a couple of needed changes to this power. 1 for a few seconds after you use it you are immune to all damage. Enough time to turn on your toggles and get debt again from the things that just killed you. 2 It will knock back and disorients foes around you (enough to piss em off so they come after you again).
Slots: If you slot this power you must know something nobody else knows about it.
Put a heal in the default slot. If you have to put a recharge in the slot you are dying too much, time to rethink what you are doing.

So that’s all the fiery aura powers. Next up the Fire melee powers

Scorch:
BI: 2.3333 + 0-5*.2778 (avg of 3.0) fire
Recharge: 3 seconds, Activation of 2 (so you can never use it faster than every 2 seconds)
EPC: 6.5
Scorch is not a bad starting power, and for any other primary it would be good to slot it up. But minor/moderate damage single target attacks are not what we want as a fire tank. Blazing aura at lower levels does the damage job much better for cheaper and Incinerate at higher levels does the job much better.
Slotting:
1 default slot stick an ACC in it.

Fire sword:
BI: 1.3889 lethal + 2.2778 fire + 0-5*.2778 = 4.4 avg BI
Recharge = 6, Act = 2
EPC: 10
An expensive not so good damage single target attack, yuck. If you want a sword go make a Katana or Broadsword scrapper.
Slotting:
You actually got this power? Respec it out at 23 and get something usefull.

Taunt:
AutoHit
EPC free?
Recharge ?
Prior to I3 this power was a single target accuracy checked taunt. The devs saw that almost no tank took this power and instead they took the AOE version in a power pool! Yes, the AT defining power (from the team’s point of view) was in a power pool. No longer do we have to take provoke. Taunt is now AOE and auto hit. The animation for the power is kinda long, but livable. If you don’t have BA you have to use this power to keep mobs in your burn patch.
Slotting: Maybe just the default if you are more scrapper oriented, if more tank oriented 6 slotted will make any team happy and debt free.
Taunt durations are nice, recharges are of minimal effect because of the animation time, and range increasers are kinda nice.

Combustion:
BI: 1.3889 fire + 8*.2778 fire = 3.6113 AOE
Recharge: 12 seconds, Act 3
EPC: 13
Ahh the first AOE in the AOE heavy secondary, and its …. GOOD! It has a larger radius, higher BI and lower cost than spine burst! The big downside is that over half of the damage is done via the DOT portion of the attack so it takes 8 seconds or so to do full damage. At higher levels the healing rate of large hit point mobs sorta dulls the effect of this power. The other problem with this power is that BA and burn cover DOT damage pretty well so this is just more damage on the stack. If you pick this power up at level 10 you will not be so happy with it because you will focus on the 1.3889 number and not the DOTs. Much like BA it requires 3 or more mobs around you to really make it shine. In your late 30s is a good time to get and 6 slot this power.
Slotting:
1 ACC SO, 5 Damage

Breath of Fire (BoF)
BI 1.8889*2 Fire + 0-5*.2778 = 4.46 avg Fire Cone
Rng: 10
Recharge 16
EPC: 14.5
This power does not get many high marks among fire tanks. The cone range is pretty small and usually mobs will be around you and not very conducive to cone attacks. I guess in some herding situations this power could do a lot of damage real fast for pretty cheap but most fire tanks skip this power.
Slotting: If you get this power 1 Acc 5 Damage would be best.

Build Up(BU)
+100% damage
+50% Acc
Recharge: 90
Duration 10
Ahh build up, the stats above pretty much say it all. It’s a nice power to increase 1 or 2 powers and then you wait until the next mob to take em down. Until your 40s alpha strikes are not what you do so this power can be put off for a long to or forever with out much impact to your effectiveness.
Slotting: recharge SOs are the only ones that make any sense.
6 Recharge SOs + perma haste = up every 24.32 seconds or so.

Fire sword circle (FSC)
BI: 2.1556 fire + 2.1556 lethal + 0-5*.2778 fire = 5.0 AOE!
Recharge: 20
EPC: 26.5
With great power comes… great endurance cost! ¼ of your bar will have you gasping for air pretty quick. This is a great Alpha strike power once you have it 6 slotted and can use either FE or build up (or both!). 5.0 BI + FE(5.0) + BU(5.0)+5 Damage SO(8.325) = 16.665 BI. I don’t know if that’s enough to take down an even con minion but it looks pretty close, and if its not and you have BA it too gets the +200% damage from FE and BU.
Slotting 1 ACC 5 Damage

Incinerate:
BI .6944*10 = 6.944 Single Fire
Recharge: 10
EPC: 10
Now this is a single target attack. It is DOT (anybody know how long it takes to do the 10 ticks?) but it’s a very efficient one for putting a little bita extra cookin on a boss/AV/Monster. It’s all fire damage so it can take advantage of the 30 second duration of FE.
Slotting:
1 Acc 5 damage

Greater Fire sword (GFS)
BI: 2.7778 Lethal + 4.0 Fire + 0-5*.5556 = 8.1668 Single AVG
Recharge 12
EPC: 18.5
This is the end of the Fire secondary, you cant get this till 38, is it worth it? It’s that old damage now for a high cost or DOT for cheap. If you find you team with a lot of defenders that increase your endurance recovery this is a great power to get. If you solo you are much more efficient with the DOT powers. Just like incinerate this is a good power for bosses/AVs/Monsters.
Slotting
1 Acc 5 Damage

Power pools that are useful to a Fire Tank:
Fitness: Stamina is I am afraid to say required to be efficient. The good news is we have 4 stinker powers that we don’t want to take. Here is the match behind why stamina is needed for a fire tank: (Courtesy of docbuzzard)
End Regen from 6 slotted stamina: 2.91
Toggles running and cost:
Acrobatics (1 end red SO) .24
Combat Jumping .08
Fire Shield .41
Plasma Shield .41
Tough .23
Weave .27
Blazing Aura (1 end red SO) .62
Usage: 2.26/sec
Net recovery: .6 end/sec This illustrates the need for consume or even conserve power to get enough end to use your attacks. The accolades for +5 end (atlas and portal jockey) are also important to increase your end recovery rate.

Fighting: Tough and Weave are very useful in bringing up our defenses to a minimal tanker level.
Tough base resist to smash/lethal = 20% with 1 SO = 24% + 66%(FS) = 90% (cap)
Weave base def to all but AOE/Cone = 12.5% with 6 SOs = 27.5%

Leaping: Super jump is a very nice travel power, but the real reason leaping is good is because of acrobatics. The fire tank has no inherent protection to knockdown. That’s bad.
Combat Jumping: cheap+ 5% def + Immobility resistance+ unlocks SJ
Super Jump (SJ): fast, fun and easy to use toggle.
Acrobatics: high resistance to knockdowns and ok resistance to hold (stacks with PS?)

Speed: Haste is the reason we dip into this pool at all. Haste adds 2 SO recharge reducers to every power while up. With 5 GREEN SOs in haste its up all the time.
Haste: 5% def

Recap of defense a fire tank can have in there late 30s with all toggles on:
FS+Tough+PS = Fire/Smash/Lethal = 90%
PS = Energy/Neg = 71.5%
FS = Cold = 22%
Def
CJ 1 SO = 6%
Haste = 5%
Weave + 6 SO = 27.5%
= 38.5%
So even minions have about an 11.5% chance to hit you, and when they do they will not do much because of our resistances.
Healing flames when fully slotted 4heal/2rechage + haste = 50% health every 25 seconds.
The above defenses should enable a smart fire tank to take on very large amounts of even to +3 mobs just what every 8 man team will want you to do!

Epic power pools:
Fire has the looks but comes up short in usefulness for a fire tank. The only power pool that would be good (besides for flavor) is the Energy power pool. And the only reason you want the energy power pool is because of conserve power.
Patriot_of_War states:
“It works like this, by the time your endo goes down to 25 percent, you hit consume to get to full. then you come back to the halfway mark and you can hit conserve power and your bar will climb while relentlessly launching your attacks. then by the time conserve power wears off the consume is recharged and so forth.”
So there you have a way to non stop attack at level 43. Very interesting indeed.


My build for a more defensive oriented Fire tank.
Archetype: Tanker
Primary Powers - Defense : Fiery Aura
Secondary Powers - Melee : Fiery Melee
Slot[01] Level 1 (Starting Primary) : Blazing Aura /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 3,3,5,5,7
Slot[02] Level 1 (Starting Secondary) : Scorch /Acc
Slot[03] Level 2 : Healing Flames /Rchg,Heal,Heal,Heal,Heal,Heal
Levels 13,13,15,15,17
Slot[04] Level 4 : Fire Shield /DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes
Levels 7,9,9,11,11
Slot[05] Level 6 : Combat Jumping /DefBuf
Slot[06] Level 8 : Consume(T) /Acc,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Levels 17,42,43,45,45
Slot[07] Level 10 : Boxing /Acc
Slot[08] Level 12 : Swift /Run
Slot[09] Level 14 : Super Jump /Jump
Slot[10] Level 16 : Taunt /Taunt
Slot[11] Level 18 : Burn(T) /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 19,19,21,21,23
Slot[12] Level 20 : Plasma Shield /DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes
Levels 23,25,25,31,31
Slot[13] Level 22 : Acrobatics /EndRdx
Slot[14] Level 24 : Health /Heal
Slot[15] Level 26 : Stamina /EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec
Levels 27,27,29,29,31
Slot[16] Level 28 : Tough /DamRes
Slot[17] Level 30 : Weave /DefBuf,DefBuf,DefBuf,DefBuf,DefBuf,DefBuf
Levels 34,34,36,36,36
Slot[18] Level 32 : Hasten /Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Levels 33,33,33,34
Slot[19] Level 35 : Fire Sword Circle(T) /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 37,37,37,39,39
Slot[20] Level 38 : Incinerate /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 39,40,40,40,42
Slot[21] Level 41 : Fiery Embrace /Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Levels 42,43,43,45,46
Slot[22] Level 44 : Build Up /Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Levels 46,46,50
Slot[23] Level 47 : Combustion /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 48,48,48,50,50
Slot[24] Level 49 : Rise Of The Phoenix /Heal

Some important ideas to understand:

But Mephe, you don’t really get any fire attacks until level 35!
Burn and Blazing aura are far and away your most damaging attacks OVER TIME. The over time part is key because that means you have to sit in the middle of a bunch of mobs with only one thing on their mind : Make sure you are utilizing your health insurance benefits. Yes that’s right all evil in COH stems from the HMO that runs the Paragon city hospitals (much like the real world). In order to keep our benefits costs down (lord knows the blasters are not helping!) it’s up to us tanks to make sure we don’t waste money in the hospital. So our defenses need to be maxed out ASAP.

At level 33 I no longer have 2 of my attacks that I had before: fire sword circle and combustion. Why? Well the biggest reason is lack of slots. I want to concentrate on being able to tank. 6 slotting 2 attacks (BA and Burn) is pretty endurance efficient so that’s all I can spare until level 36.

So um… why do you have consume at level 10, when you have stamina at 26?
Consume is a nice power to have and after going without it in a previous respec I decided that without the slots to put in combustion the utility uses of consume (even 2 slotted until 39) is very useful. Six slotted stamina pays for your toggles and when burning even level minions you won’t have much want for end. But with tough and weave and a 6 slotted healing flames you can tank higher level bosses, AVs and monsters. These fights will drop your end bar because you will be using burn and healing flames over and over. With consume ready to go when you need it you can also cycle in scorch and boxing to add a bit of spice to the boss fight. If you are paying attention consume will make sure you never have end troubles again.

What no epic pool? Are you insane?
Yes I have no epic pool. People ask me if I an insane all the time… I wonder if I should worry. In my opinion the epic pools for tanks are rather… useless relative to the other powers we can pick. A defensive pool heavy fire tank is already low on power picks so I can’t imagine wasting a power on a single target hold or a ranged damage power when I can get fiery embrace and build up to help out my 4 already six slotted attacks. I have taunt for ranged usage, so I am not too worried about ranged attackers picking off other members of the team.

So is the above build the only way to make a fire/fire tank?
YES! You have no free will it’s all an illusion…. Whoops flashback from Sunday church. Of course you don’t have to use the above build; its very tank/defensive with just enough damage so you can solo any of your missions. But, it’s not a big damage dealer in a fast moving team until the late 40s. Its takes time to orient a group just right, fire off burn, and wait for them to stop smoking. Using FSC and combustion with fiery embrace and or buildup is much quicker when you have nova happy blasters.

I want a fire scrapper like I had pre issue 3, can it be done?
Sure, and this time I even made you a hero plan for it.
Archetype: Tanker
Primary Powers - Defense : Fiery Aura
Secondary Powers - Melee : Fiery Melee
Slot[01] Level 1 (Starting Primary) : Blazing Aura /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 3,3,5,5,7
Slot[02] Level 1 (Starting Secondary) : Scorch /Acc
Slot[03] Level 2 : Fire Shield /DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes
Levels 7,9,9,11,11
Slot[04] Level 4 : Healing Flames /Heal,Heal,Heal
Levels 17,17
Slot[05] Level 6 : Hurdle /Jump
Slot[06] Level 8 : Consume(T) /Acc,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Levels 33,39,42,50
Slot[07] Level 10 : Combustion /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 36,36,36,36,36
Slot[08] Level 12 : Hasten /Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Levels 13,13,15,15
Slot[09] Level 14 : Super Speed /Run
Slot[10] Level 16 : Health /Heal
Slot[11] Level 18 : Burn(T) /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 19,19,21,21,23
Slot[12] Level 20 : Stamina /EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec
Levels 23,25,25,27,27
Slot[13] Level 22 : Plasma Shield /DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes,DamRes
Levels 29,29,31,31,31
Slot[14] Level 24 : Build Up /Rchg
Slot[15] Level 26 : Fiery Embrace /Rchg
Slot[16] Level 28 : Fire Sword Circle(T) /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 33,33,33,33,33
Slot[17] Level 30 : Taunt /Taunt (with the changes on test BA should hold agro for burn)
Slot[18] Level 32 : Rise Of The Phoenix /Rchg
Slot[19] Level 35 : Incinerate /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 36,39,39,39,39
Slot[20] Level 38 : Greater Fire Sword /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 39,42,42,42,42
Slot[21] Level 41 : Char /Acc,Hold,Hold
Levels 42,45
Slot[22] Level 44 : Fireblast (Fight) /Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 45,45,45,45,45
Slot[23] Level 47 : Fireball / Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Levels 48,48,48,50,50
Slot[24] Level 49 : Stealth /Empty

This build does without tough/weave and adds more attacks (even fireball!) earlier in the build. This build should be used like a scrapper because your defenses are about the same as one! You only hit the resistance cap on fire and your only defense comes from haste (5%) and stealth (7.5%) for a total of 12.5%. Endurance usage is greatly increased in the short term so consume becomes pretty important (fire off Fiery+buildup+FSC+combustion+fireball+burn and you will be sucking wind real quick even with stamina six slotted). Your single target power is pretty good also with (fiery+buildup+incinerate+fireblast+GFS) This build should be able to hang with any spines/inv build out their.

Hey numbnuts! You put Taunt after burn! I thought you said you have to use taunt before burn will work.
Why you little…. Oh yeah that’s really me asking these questions (hm.. I bet a shrink would be really interested in my self to self conversations) Ahhem! The new punch voke code seems to be in one word: amazing. Taunt is great for being a good team tank that makes sure no mob is left with high self esteem, but if you are more of a scrapper you don’t need it as long as you start off your fights with an AOE power. On test they added BA and consume to the list of powers that do punch-voke so just running BA will ensure the mobs sit tight while you cook the bottom of their feet. Plenty of agro for any scraptanker (some times it may be too much, and that’s why you have healing flames 3 slotted).

So now I have a lot of damage powers, pretty good defenses, bring on the AVs!
I don’t think so. Think of yourself as a scraptanker. Certain scrapper builds have much better staying power than you do. You got no knockdown protection, your smash/lethal resist is topped out at about 72% and you have almost no defense. You have more HPs than a scrapper, but your attacks costs more and do less damage. Your attacks also do punchvoke so without another tank on the team you may be getting more agro than you can handle. But with all those attacks it should be fun, just make sure all your heath care benefits are paid up. Fast arresting lots of minions is your main job.

What should I kill at each level?
1-6 - do your missions!
7-12 - go to perez park or the hollows and fight large packs of greens and maybe blues solo, and/or do missions. Watch out for bosses, they can kill you fast.
13-17 – boomtown/hollows greens/blues and missions. Again bosses will kill you in most cases.
18-20 - boomtown, bosses cry when they see you, minions melt.
21-23 – zombies in DA
23-28 – yellow/orange captains in TV – This is when you feel most uber, relex that will pass soon.
29-30 – zombies in red zone of DA. Or freaks in TV. Tank smashers are nasty though, so I chose DA. Captain groups are up to 28 AFAIK.
30 – manticore TF is pretty hard at this level, but with a good group or SKing you should get good exp.
31 –39 you can get into Creys but its nothing like TV or DA so watch your back. 6 slotted plasma shield is required here. Ritki monkey exp is worthless.
30-35 Brickstown is pretty good for easy exp but it is getting pretty crowded. Prisoner exp is worthless.
39 + PI is pretty easy at 39 stick close to the ferry and melt away some nemesis, watch out for carnies and their PSI damage though.
41+ – Ritki crash site – hazard zone spawns and it’s empty. If you have good tactics this is the place to go.
41+ Firebase zulu – hazard zone spawns and it’s empty. Much like the crash site but a bit easier to get to.
40+ missions, especially the portal ones spawn large spawns and since you set your mission diff to unyielding these are good exp. Add a few teammates for even more fun.

22+ - Large 8 man indoor missions are now great fun. You are a useful tank (thanks to your SOs) and with your team mates and mass kills you can rake in the exp pretty well. Much more fun that street grinding. For max mission exp set your missions to unyielding.

[ QUOTE ]
The Nemesis concept:

Each individual player and/or supergroup may declare a specific villian group their "nemesis." By declaring a group as your "nemesis", you gain certain abilities (possibly based on AT), and potentially certain weaknesses.


[/ QUOTE ]

Brilliant!

To expand on this idea and also bring in some vision. Think about the new Justice League unlimited as an SG in COH. They have what at top level SG should have. A base with teleportation/vehicles to get to any area (or mission) and the ability to hand out missions to its members.

So how do we take these ideas and turn them into a system that starts out small and at the top level gets to JLU status or beyond?

Level 1 SG. When making an SG, its currently free to register. Thats fine, thats level 1. Currently just a way to have a new list of friends and a chat. (I really think the current SG system is pretty poor)

Level 2 - A base of operation. You need to buy a base and as touched on in COV it costs influence to persuade the city to give you a place rent free.

Level 3 - A SG needs to expand, but just using each members influence is.... boring and puts the burden on some level 50s that already have super bucks. What we need is when you get your fist base its a run down building in KR or Hollows, its a small room with a table and one NPC. This is your Paragon city liason that the SG members must do missions through in order to increase the SGs influence. This NPC is able to give out missions to each person based on thier level. When you select this mission only SG members can be on your team or added to the team. Any influence gained by the team members is added to the SG's special influence that can be used to purchase:

Purchasable items using SG money (the same NPC as above has a list in which only the SG leaders can access).
1 Move your base to a different area.
Cost based on zone, and distance to train. (Low cost up to Moderate)
2 Add a trophey room to your SG.
On high level SG missions if your SG beats an AV and you have a trophey room a statue version of that AV is added to your trophey room with a plaque that lists date of capture and all team members for the first capture.
Cost - Moderate
3 Crey teleporter - Can send anybody that clicks on it (think crey portal in PI) to the enterance of their currently selected mission.
Cost - extreme
4 Crey personal teleporter - accolade that is given to each SG member once when they enter the base. Click this power and you automatically zone to the SG base.
Cost - extreme
5 Select a SG nemesis - as stated by solo_4114
accolade with a perm power given to each member as they enter the base for the first time. Increases the number of missions versus that nemesis as given out by the SG NPC.
Cost - high
6 SG supercomputer - replaces the NPC with a super sized computer and screen that has more missions to select from The NPC has 2 at a time, the PC has 6. This simulates the SG being hooked into more Crime prevention systems.
cost - High
7 Crey portal - Only able to purchase after you buy the nemesis. This portal acts like an instanced hazard zone (think of a tram mission with hazard zone spawn sizes). The portal only spawns mobs from the nemesis. The level of the spawns is based on the team leader that enters the portal. This portal leads to a dimension where the nemesis has taken over. Your SGs goal is to clean out the dimension and free it. On the flip side for COV the villans also get this portal and their task is to make sure they keep this dimension. This could get really complicated but could end up helping define the push and pull for PvP in COH. Because this is not in our world nobody gets any influence for any "kills" in these "missions"
Cost - extreme
8 Expand base by one room.
Work out room - just for looks, no usable features.
Dance party - smaller version of the current Rave, no exits.
Coffee shop - just for looks, no usable features.
Computer room - just for looks, no usable features.
Magic room - just for looks, no usable features.
Science room - just for looks, no usable features.
Vehicle room- just for looks, no usable features.
etc...
Cost - moderate per room added, max of X rooms.
9 Labs - these are like stores, they buy and sell enhancements based on origin.
Science lab, Magic lab, Tech lab, Gunsmith, Genetics lab.
Cost - high
10 SG vault - an NPC "store" that buys and sells enhancements for 0 infl. Great way to unload unused enhancements for other SG members without worrying if they are online.
cost - high
11 Training room - Arena so SG members can PvP spar with each other with no benefit or loss.
cost - moderate
12 Holo(Danger) room - 100x100 area that creates spawns in the center based upon a selection entered in by a person at a terminal outside the room that can look in through the glass. Through the interface the user can select spawn size, level and enemy type (council or vahz, etc). All spawns count as pets(no exp) and any defeats gain no debt. The spawns despawn when they get close to the door.
cost - high
Hospital - Instead of getting transported to the city hospitals your SG members zone to this room in your base upon defeat.
Cost - high.

Remember folks things like kicking SG leaders, changing colors etc are needed, but they should be obvious to the devs now. What this game needs more of is focused content that brings an SG together with a united plan. At first it starts with just getting enough cash to buy all the cool features, then it turns into a turf war with a COV ?SG?. This kind of content keeps the game interesting at all levels.

[ QUOTE ]
What about the Blasters that don't have NRG as a secondary? It's kinda messed up

[/ QUOTE ]

You cant have a blaster conserve power for the sheer fact that energy secondary would have access to the same power twice. With haste and 2 CPs you could easily have perm CP and never ever run out of endurance, even without stamina. All other blaster secondaries would be junk relative to energy (most already are!)

As a guide this one is perfect. I think people are still in shock from it.

I have a level 41 Ill/Rad and everything you state about illusion is spot on; dont know about the kin side of things though.

Nice job!

[ QUOTE ]
That issue is next up - right after the Expansion goes live.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know its fine line between "god mode easy" and "yeah I feel like a super hero but its still a challenge". I dont envy your task, and the great nerfs bats that must be swung will crush many. Prepare for some major hate on the boards.

Time to roll a Mind/FF controller, they can only go up from here!

[ QUOTE ]
The most base level of balance is that 3 minions=1 hero.


[/ QUOTE ]

And this is why the whole system breaks down.

If all the characters only did single target damage/effects/etc then you can have this kind of linear balance. Once you throw AOEs into the mix each team members adds an exponetial increase in power to the group, espesially when you get synergies of powers involved.

Synergies like AOE hold + AOE damage = kill as many in an area as you can fit. Couple this with the phyics/jump bug and you have a duo that cant be challenged by any number of white cons.

Another synergy is Res+Def + AOE damage. A fire tank or tanks with good AOE attacks(fire sword circle) can do this all by themselves, as can many high level scrappers.

And now we see why they so wanted the purple patch, it caps out the top end of a broken system. Now the hard part... what to do with AOEs and or white cons?

Some ideas I have seen:
AOE powers have a max damage cap. IE A fireball that does 100 damage to a white con with no fire resist, and has a cap of 300. (back to the whole 1 hero = 3 whites)
if you hit 300 mobs they all take 1 point of damage, 30 mobs = 10, 3 mobs = 100 each. Perfectly scaled AOE damage that you can predict the power of any hero that uses it.
This would cause anybody with an AOE power to cry non stop for many many weeks. It also requires a massive bump to exp for white cons, or a much more linear exp scale of heroes to keep the current exp rate.

_______OR_____________

A sliding scale fits better with how the end game currently works and gives a better sense of "super hero"
1 level 1-11 hero = 3 white minions, 1 yellow
1 level 12-21 hero = 6 white minions , 2 yellow, 1 orange
1 level 22-30 hero = 12 white minions, 4 yellow, 2 orange, 1 red
1 level 30-40 hero = 24 white minions or 8 yellow or 4 orange or 2 red or 1 purple.
1 level 41-50 hero = 48 white minions or 16 yellow or 8 orange or 4 red or 2 purple.

Some powers would still have to be tweeked to match this. We also need to factor time into the above scale. 3 whites seems like it should be a 30 second fight at say level 10, so all the above should happen every 30-60 seconds.

Because the game does not really support so many spawns you now need to remove the purple patch so the exp/min time of 2 red minions = 24 minions. This gives more of a sense of Super hero because you can do more than you ever could before when you level and slot things up. It also better matches the exp rates we see today with the AOE builds that feed on mass amounts of white cons solo.

Solo ability should be defined as a modifier to the above scale. Scrappers and blasters have no modifications.
Tanks, defenders and controllers have an increase in time solo, so instead of 30 seconds it becomes 60 seconds when solo, but in a group with damage dealers they increase the number of mobs by one member when they are matched up with a damage dealer.

So a level 41 blaster with a level 41 controller should be able to take out 6 purples every 30 seconds.

2 level 41 blasters should be able to take out 4 purples every 30 seconds.

1 level 41 blaster + 2 level 41 controllers = 8 purples (limited by lack of damage)

2 level 41 blasters + 2 level 41 controllers = 12 purples (perfectly balanced team)

So with the group bonus and the support powers tweaked up in some cases you now have a good reason to group with the support classes. This would be the basis for all further nerfs and changes to powers. If some blaster at level 41 can solo 1000 mobs, tweak the mobs or tweek the blaster to bring them back to 48.

Something that I also see as broken... exp for a level 14 white 5th column is the same exp as a level 14 white vahz. We all love to kill 5th because relative to many other mobs they are easier. Each mob needs a system much closer to 3rd edition D&D that bumps up the exp value based on powers and how hard it is to kill and or survive a fight. A mob that can chain hold you is much more of a pain than a mob that does only melee punch damage. The chain holder should be worth X2 or X3 the exp of the same level puncher.