Northman

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn

I love that building. Been around since the game began, but very few people know about it.

Originally Posted by MikeRobe

Plant/NA is fun, no doubt about it, but honestly, it is not very synergistic. I have one currently at lvl 27 and it is great. I just rolled a fire/na to take advantage of the patch nature of NA's more powerful powers. Plant/ plays best from range - cones & range attacks. /NA plays (or seems to play) best in melee from what I've seen of it. I'm hoping for great things with my fire/na...

Originally Posted by Hopeling

There's a staff pack on beta right now. It's not specifically part of i24; since it hit beta sooner, I'd actually expect it to reach live some time before i24 does.

Pics here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=294073 (warning: this thread will disappear when the i23 forums are deprecated on Friday)

Originally Posted by Local_Man

I explained in my Ill/Rad guide how Illusion and Radiation have a special synergy. Now, Time Manip also has many of the same benefits.

In particular, Illusion's key power is Phantom Army. Because they can't be buffed, you can only make them better with Defense and Resistance Debuffs. Plus, getting a Recharge buff makes it easier to get them perma. Radiation has a 30% Recharge from Accelerate Metabolism, plus a Defense Debuff in Radiation Infection and a Resistance Debuff in Enervating Field. Time has a 50% Recharge buff in Chrono Shift, and a Resistance and Defense debuff in Slowed Response. Both sets add an AoE Slow to help with Illusion's lack of AoE Control.

While all secondaries work well with Illusion, and all primaries work well with both Rad and Time, Ill/Rad and Ill/Time have strong synergy.

If you want the ultimate AoE Control character, Earth/Trick Arrow is huge. It has two of:

Single Target Immob
Single Target Hold
AoE Hold
AoE Slow
AoE Knockdown
AoE Sleep

Only Earth's AoE Sleep is PB AoE; all of the other powers are ranged. Of the three remaining powers in Earth, Stalagmites+Stone Cages is another Ranged AoE combo, plus Animate Stone is a very sturdy aggro magnet. TA's remaining three powers are debuffs.

Earth/Trick Arrow is the one combo that could arguably be said to have too much control.

Originally Posted by Leo_G

Nothing really stands out as conceptually or mechanically synergetic when it comes to primaries to pair with it.

Even Dual Pistols. I'm not a big loather of redraw, frankly I don't mind redraw at all...but without actually holding the pistols while you kick, it kind of ruins any conceptual synergy the combo would have...I mean, the whole reason you're kicking is because your hands are too busy shooting to punch people.

But I think I'll wait for a Thrown Weapon blasting set before I delve into this new secondary. I've had the perfect character for it for a long time now and thinking about rerolling (not side-rolling) him from Spines/Dark stalker to thrown/martial blaster. I'm definitely rerolling his alternate dark/thorns dom build into dark/martial dom...that combo is just too perfect a fit.

Originally Posted by Sir Hextor

I team with a guy who plays one and he does indeed put out AoE damage insanely. Fortunately, Water provides a metric ton of mitigation and therefore the extra damage in /Fire is leveraged quite nicely.

Originally Posted by Neogumbercules

I've been thinking about making a lowbie patrol cave map.

Originally Posted by Aneurysmo

Fire isn't sub-par. I, and others, have solod the ITF (and more) with /Fire broots. What fire is, is essentially a second source of DPS. Burn is a giant heap of damage, better than almost all primary DPS powers and it's up perma on a good build. What fire isn't, is a particularly good source of mitigation. It relies very heavily upon its heal keeping it standing. That said, getting it to 32.5% defense v positions makes it fairly tough.

EDIT:

Sorry OP, I realise I didn't really solve your issue much!

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

...
*Looks at his non-purpled Nictus who eats x8 spawns by default*

Dechs, I think there are people in need of tutoring in the way of the **-ing Warshade

Originally Posted by mauk2

Tanks are not about damage.

Tanks are about tanking, which is not the same as durability.

Also, SD/MA has three primary points of synergy.

1) Storm kick is a massive def to all buff. Def to ALL. Since shield is positionals, that covers everything except non-positional attacks. How many of those are there in the game? The buff is very applicable into the incarnate levels, as well. Its real value is not the size of the buff, its in the fact that it has NO HOLES.

2) Mitigation is all knockdown. Dragontail and shield charge synergize beautifully. Many/most of the iFactions to date are susceptible to knock. Knockdown works like a charm against them. (That's counterbalanced by outlevelling things to make them suffer kb, but just turn it up a notch to compensate.)



3) Eagle Claw grants a nice +damage buff, which stacks beautifully with AAO. Eagle Claw/Shield Charge/Dragon Tail in a big crowd is pretty.


In addition, SD on a tank has the second best aggro-holding aura in the game (an icer beats you, barely), and OWTS makes you an Invuln tanker for two minutes at a time.

SD/MA is a very, VERY good combo. YMMV