PBAtty

Since healing and buffing from an emp defender are less necessary, in general, later in the game as opposed to early on, I think that's a good reason to take more attacks. You could always respec into more attacks later in the game, of course. At the higher levels, you'll find yourself having much more time to attack. On my lvl 50 emp/arch defender, I always used my attacks in addition to healing and buffing...but in the later stages of the game, I'd often be on teams that didn't need much healing or buffing and I could just fire away attacks for the most part.

The funny thing about the "healbots" or whatever you want to call them, they rarely ever use CM or Fort. If you're not going to take any attacks, then you better be using ALL of your primaries. I can't tell you how many times I ended up with a 2nd emp on the team and I'd keep getting mezzed. I'm keeping 7 people, including the other emp, on CM at all times (while still using all of my attacks) and they can't even keep just me on CM. You'd think after three times of "zzz" or "CM please" that they'd figure it out but usually it would require a tell practically begging them to please keep CM on me and I'll handle CM for the rest of the team, lol. Same with Fort. I'm keeping Fort on 3 people at all times and they don't even use it. Or better yet, we enter the mission, they put CM and Fort on the Tank (the person who needs either of them least) one time and that's their only use of CM or Fort for the rest of the mission, haha.

At the lower levels, if you properly use CM and Fort, your teammates will love you. Plus, you'll need to spend less time healing because those squishies will take less damage since they are getting mezzed less and have boosts to their defense.

Just got back playing here in the last month after being gone for about a year. Had an interesting experience today in a PUG that seemed so odd it actually had me questioning myself as to whether I was missing something. I play pretty much exclusively on PUGs and there always seems to be an unwritten rule that most people know to try to take sappers (especially Malta sappers) out quickly. As long as 2-3 people are paying attention to sappers, that's usually enough to keep them in check anyway.

I was playing my ice/cold controller today and got invited to a PUG with a level 45 team leader. The team leader seemed overly excited to have a controller join the team which told me that they had been running into some problems. It was a Freakshow mission and the team leader was making a big deal in team chat about how it would be my responsibility to lock down the Super Stunners. I didn't mind since I'd be doing that anyway as I always try to lock down bosses and he's the team leader so how ever he wants to play it. Then, we get in the mission and he has some sort of binds set up to announce his targets because he's making a bunch of announcements about targeting the Super Stunner in the first spawn as we're all standing by the mission entrance getting organized. Again, I'm thinking fine, I'm targeting that guy anyway.

Then, it gets interesting, lol. All of a sudden, I get a tell from this guy which says for me to charge into a spawn of like 10-12 freaks just so I can lock down the Super Stunner. This is a full team of 8 with a tank and a scrapper. I don't remember the exact settings but I was set at one level below the team leader and the bosses were conning red to me so it wasn't turned up super-high or anything. This should not have been THAT challenging to a full, balanced team. Anyways, I had to do a double-take and make sure I was reading that tell correctly. The strategy being directed by the team leader seemed flawed for several reasons. (1) If I rush in just to freeze a Super Stunner, it's a suicide run because there's no way I'm surviving the alpha strike. So now I'm down and useless to the team and the spawn is going to be set off into chaos on the rest of the team with no aggro control. (2) Since the Super Stunners can fly, ice slick would be useless to incapacitate them so I'd have to use Ice Block and then everyone else bombs me or I'd have to try Glacier which has lower accuracy and may not hold the Super Stunner since he's a boss and definitely won't hold some of the spawn which now lets loose on me. (3) We have a tank, it's his job to take the alpha strike and draw and maintain the aggro. (4) There's no way a Super Stunner can sap an entire team of 8 instantly right off the bat. If the tank draws the alpha strike, I can quickly follow with holds on the Super Stunner before he does any real damage to anyone. (5) With ice slick, glacier, sleet, etc., I can mitigate a bunch of damage and easily keep holds also on a Super Stunner at the same time. Having me basically disregard all of my other powers to only focus on 1 boss is a waste.

Is there something I'm missing here? I didn't respond to the tell, mainly because I was pretty shocked. I just let the tank go in like normal and then I locked down the Super Stunners as requested. The team leader had some other questionable strategies as the mission proceeded. So I just politely excused myself from the team after one mission. That group had teamwipe written all over them, lol. I didn't really understand why someone so freaked out about end drains would be running Freakshow missions since many of their guys have end drain powers. Also, I found it interesting that the team leader was an emp defender and never used CM or Fort. I had to repeatedly ask for CM because I kept getting mezzed. So you're going to direct me and my squishy body to charge big spawns of freaks without even giving me any CM or Fort? Yeah, that'll go well. At one point late in the mission he bemoaned the fact that he wished he could give himself CM. I was thinking....yeah, I wish you could give me CM too, lol.

Anyways, sorry for the rant....it didn't bother me at all or anything, just one of those comical, head-scratching moments you get sometimes in PUGs where you can't do anything but laugh. This one was just so odd that I had to share (unless I'm missing some brilliant strategy that flew right over my head here, haha). Ahhhhh, it's good to be back!

Plus, if you dislike crafting....you can craft all the incarnate powers right from the incarnate interface wherever you are. So you don't have to run around to WWs or your base or the universities or go to your vault to do the crafting. It's pretty quick and easy for the incarnate slots.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I think I can work Arctic Air into my build later and then the end shouldn't be as much of an issue, as was mentioned. I like Snow Storm but just couldn't seem to get enough use out of it on my cold defender because on PUGs, the anchor always dies too soon, and when soloing it's hard to run that many end heavy toggles and use all hold and attacking powers repeatedly.

I've recently gotten back into the game after being away for about a year. I rolled an ice/cold troller that is now up to level 31. I have an ice/emp troller and had a cold/ice defender so I've got some experience with both the primary and the secondary but I had some questions, particularly since some things have changed since I last played. There's a few powers in the primary and secondary that I intend to skip but I'm looking for some opinions about the utility of those powers before I get too much further along with leveling.

For background, I typically play on PUGs although I will solo sometimes (after I've hit lvl 32 and get Jack) and I'll run on TFs and Incarnate Trials eventually with this toon (no AE or farms). So I would say probably 90% of the time this toon will be on a PUG team and I'm really more concerned with end-game playability than how it plays as I level. As for playstyle, other than the obvious efforts to keep shields up on the team, I generally try to mitigate team damage with Ice Slick and/or Glacier once the tank has drawn the aggro and otherwise I'm focused on locking down bosses and lieutenants with holds and debuffing them or helping out a fellow squishy by freezing someone that is all over them. If things seem to be under control, I'll get into the middle of the fray to attack a locked down boss or lieutenant that all the melee people are ignoring while they beat up on minions, lol.

Here are the powers I intend to skip at this point: Flash Freeze, Arctic Air and Snow Storm. With my general playstyle and use for the toon in mind, I would be curious if anything thinks skipping any of these would be a mistake. My reasoning for skipping each is as follows:

Flash Freeze - Never had it before. I've never seen anyone get a benefit from a mass sleep power on a PUG though. People are going to attack everything that moves so the mass sleep effect last for about 2 seconds if you're lucky. Might have some usefulness soloing against huge spawns, but since I won't be soloing with this toon much, doesn't seem worth taking. I don't know if I've ever even seen someone use this power on an ice troller before. The only thing I can see it maybe being useful for at end game is the Lamdba trial in the warehouse or labs to keep the spawns off everyone but I have no idea how accurate it would be on those spawns.

Arctic Air - Had it once before but dropped it on a respec because it's such a huge end hog (takes twice the end that Snow Storm or Arctic Fog take). I plan on taking Frozen Armor from the Ice Epics. So eventually I'll be running 3 toggles basically continuously Arctic Fog, Frozen Armor and Combat Jumping. There will be a Karma KB protection in CJ so I'll be running it for the slight Def boost plus the KB protection. I could technically put the KB protection in Arctic Fog but the end really isn't much for CJ and I'd have to give up a slot somewhere else to add another slot to Arctic Fog for that. My toon is already an end hog (no set bonuses until I hit 47 and can slot my level 50 sets and no accolade bonuses yet and no end proc for my Alpha slot til I hit 50). With Sleet and Ice Storm already providing Targeted AoE -SPD and -RECH effects, it just doesn't seem to make sense to take AA which is a PBAoE toggle that also provides -SPD and -RECH effects. If I'm in the middle of a spawn, it will be because they are falling down or frozen, I wouldn't use AA for crowd control on a PUG. Arctic Fog just seems much more useful than AA because it's half the end cost, it grants team stealth effects and it grants defense. If someone can make an argument for AA though, I'm all ears...I've seen plenty of people run it before so somebody out there must like it.

Snow Storm - Had it on my cold/ice defender and it seemed to get little use on PUGs. It's another -SPD and -RECH AoE like AA but it's a Targeted AoE instead of a PBAoE and it's half the end cost of AA so it's definitely got some advantages over AA there. But again, with Sleet and Ice Storm, yet another -SPD and -RECH AoE seems like a waste, especially since it's a toggle. Worst of all, it requires an anchor, which on a PUG just turns the power into an exercise in frustration. Once the anchor dies (which is usually quickly), then the Snow Storm is gone and you're now an aggro magnet. While I love playing guess which mob the rest of the team is likely to kill last as much as the next guy, it just doesn't seem to be worth the hassle....didn't seem to get much use before.

Any thoughts either confirming my line of thinking here or making an argument for why one of these powers could be more useful than I think would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

If I put the Numina's unique +regen, +recovery into a toggle power, will the bonus regen and recovery effect last the entire time I have the power toggled on or just for 120 seconds after first activated?

There will always be a certain group of people that want unlockable content to be easier to unlock. Everything in the game is not supposed to be easy. If your computer is so slow that it is literally impossible for you to participate in a Raid, then I feel for you but I don't think they should be bending the rules of the game to fit people who are playing on computers too slow to even run the game. There's obviously going to be some lag if you've got a huge group doing a Raid and, yeah, that can be annoying but I don't see how anyone could find running a slightly lagged Raid as more boring than running dozens and dozens of missions just to get the same amount of Vanguard merits. You can get 350-400 Vanguard merits from one Raid. That will unlock a good portion of the uniform assuming you even want all of the uniform parts.

However, there are other ways to rack up Vanguard merits if that's all you're trying to do. Whenever you see a Rikti invasion in a zone, head over there and hop on a team. As long as they are green con, you are eligible for merits so run the endless timed missions in the RWZ on -1 X 8 with no bosses for huge spawns and you can rack up merits that way too. It's the same percentage chance of them dropping merits whether are green or purple. You can get around 10-15 Vanguard merits per timed mission that way.

I just started collecting Vanguard merits about 5 days ago for one of my toons and I've got the chest piece, the belt, the shoulders and the hips unlocked. That's 500 merits right there and I have another 115 merits banked. I'm ignoring the helmet and facepieces...just need another 185 merits to get the katana and boots and I'm set. In 5 days, I've done 1 Raid, 2 Rikti invasions, 3 RWZ story arcs and about 5 timed missions with the last couple set on -1 X 8 to boost the spawn size. That has netted me 615 Vanguard merits in 5 days. There is nothing about that which seems unreasonable to me.

Bad players will find a way to play poorly, no matter the AT. Frankly, I can't imagine anything more boring for my tank than running AE farm missions. Good players who enjoy the challenge of tanking are probably looking for something a little more interesting to do than tank for AE farms. One possibility is that you just ran into a team with 3 people who had been PLing and never really learned how to tank.

However, I would venture a guess that, more often than not, it's the blaster driving the tank crazy and not the other way around. A lot of times in PuGs, you get scrappers and blasters or even controllers who refuse to let the tank even draw the aggro because they are not team players and they are more interested in trying to show everyone they can solo spawns or they are just playing sloppy and drawing aggro from nearby spawns or unleashing AoEs before the tanker even has the aggro. Unfortunately, the better you tank, sometimes the harder your job becomes. People get overconfident because they haven't been taking any damage, they think they are invincible and they rush off on their own or jump the gun on the tank and faceplant. It's the tank's job to keep the aggro off the squishies but squishies also have to be smart about their attacks and make sure the tank has the aggro. If you're a scrapper, you might be able to handle the aggro from the spawn you just set off, but you might get your teammates killed because you can't hold their aggro and keep it off the squishies. Also, a good general rule of thumb is "don't draw aggro that you can't handle". If I'm playing a blaster, I usually target through the tank so that I know I'm attacking enemies that are part of the tank's aggro. If stray guys come at you and you can't handle them, then just run/hop across the tank and they'll get swept up in his aggro.

By the way, I've seen plenty of horrible tanks too....tanks that couldn't hold aggro to save their lives. I ended up on a PuG tonight where it was a tank and the rest squishies. The tank just herded some guys up, taunted and stood there....didn't attack at all. People were dying...we couldn't kill them fast enough and this guy just stood there taunting and took it to the opposite extreme where he thought that's all he was there to do. A lot of it depends on the team. Sometimes the team tears through spawns and you don't need to even worry about attacking much. Sometimes the team is light on damage and you've got to do some damage while you're holding aggro.

Ahhhhhhhhh, very nice. That sounds like a good solution. I'll try that and that should fix the problem! Thanks!

I have a custom enemy group on a story arc that I created which has specific bosses that fit into the storyline for each of the 3 missions. After you've defeated each boss, that's it, they are out of the picture. However, I've noticed a couple of times when I've run the arc with a cranked up difficulty that they've popped up on maps not as my main "defeat a boss" goal with all of the dialogue but just as a regular boss in an enemy group. It completely ruins the entire story because either you've killed them earlier in the arc and they should no longer exist or you end up beating them and then running into them again when they are actually supposed to be in the arc. Is there a way for me to restrict a custom boss from appearing elsewhere in a mission or on a map in a custom enemy group? I could add another generic boss to the custom enemy group but how will I be assured that the generic boss would be the boss selected from the possible bosses for an enemy group spawn?

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but I think you're asking if you can save locally a published story arc that you no longer have saved on your computer and then possibly unpublish it after you've saved it? I had a published arc, went on a 1 year break from CoH, didn't have the arc saved locally on my computer and when I returned to CoH, I was able to access it, edit it and save it locally on my computer. I've de-published it since to work on it and it still appears in my local arcs.

Thanks for the info. I just got back into the game recently and I seem to remember that one or both of these powers used to be a KB power awhile back so I wasn't sure.