Person34

Eh well I had to ask, ya never know in CoH! Thanks for the quick replies guys.

Ok thanks for the information guys!

Can a hero and villain enter a leveling pact? The information on it doesn't say they -can't-, and I should assume they cannot due to the fact that (outside of RWZ etc) a hero and villain aren't able to xp together. Anyone know?

Figured I'd ask here before running 2 newbies to Pocket D thanks in advance.

I've noticed that when I switch between a crab and bane build the "crabpack" remains on the bane. Is there a way to get rid of it while in bane build? In crab form the pack is fine but in bane form I'd rather have a cape than a cumbersome-looking mechanical device with four 6' legs jutting out of the top of it. Is this a known bug or is there a way around it? Thanks.

It -does- draw the mace when using placate. Just like buildup.

Yeah DBs can lay out the hurt. From hidden BU + 1kcuts + placate + sweeping strike can be surprising.

I have a NW and bane at 50, nothing wrong with the bane personally. What hampers it is long cast times and all non-mace powers causing redraw. And there are a lot of non-mace powers to grab.

They also don't get a tier 9 power: web cocoon is a cool hold and all but I want something like shield's t9. Of course, one could pretend the 2 arachnobots are a t9... you summon them, then they bite the dust 15 seconds later and you're left with a feeling of "yyeeesss I'm pretty tough!" as you watch them fade away into nothingness (heh, couldn't resist saying that, for those of you that like the pets that's great but personally I find them both squishy and useless).

On paper the bane -should- be 24 carat gold: crits, higher hps with bane armor, decent resists, passive status prot (which some folks don't like). And once you get capped defenses (by diving into fighting or leadership pools) and get it IOed up a bit they are no worse off then widows IMO. My bane has been able to do anything my NW has, yeah I'm not soloing pylons or smacking around heros but not many veats are.

You know what the banes -biggest- problem is? Everyone expects them to be night widows. Outside of both being veats and having stealth they are different creatures. Just my opinion of course.

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How has MA made it more difficult to play missions and take damage?

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I believe that the damage taken in an AE mish does not count towards your damage taken badges. I know that when I was trying to finnish off my 1.2 mil debt badge that I could wipe debt from my toon but it would not be reflected on the badge progress bar if I was using AE mission mobs.

Yeah, best bet is to just find a CoT mission and just rest in front of it, then head to work/ bed etc.

I'll take a look at your build when I get home (in 12 hours heh), but from reading you post you seem to have run into what most folks do when attempting to make their banes into something high end: you have to skip out on some things you don't want to.

My bane for example is softcapped melee/ranged, is running 97.5% global rech and is 41% l/s resist with @20% everything else w/ 1700n hps... but at the expense of no travel powers and no ranged attacks.

I'm curoius to see your build as it might give me some ideas =D

If they port over claws I'll be making my first brute in the 3 years I've been playing this game. And who really gives a rat's [censored] if it's lethal? It's fast and low end and looks damn cool.

Yeah and I agree with ya Blizt, I tried hard to like my widow but their slash animation makes the toon look like it's attacking from an invisible exercise bike or something. Too bad, it's a killer attack.

I guess "most powerful PvE" stalker is just be be a matter of opinions and taste. Yeah, DM is a powerful primary but it's mostly single target and is touted generally for its cool AS animation. I have a 47 DM/nin and while its fun to play, my DB/nin and my elec/nin fit the PvE scene better. For me anyways as I tend to group a lot and BU + LR + TS or BU + 1kcuts + sweeping strike seems more efficient than a series of single target attacks. In fact I'm honestly trying to remember the last time I used AS after the I12 stalker changes went into effect...

What does one define as "most powerful"? Soloing an AV or a pylon? Or just simply doing paper missions? I don't think the former happens too often and for the latter -any- combo will work. Yes some have more tools than others or different damage types, some might be more effective vs a certain type of target but in the long run it's about having fun. So just pick whatever you think suits ya and go kick some tail!

A little info on stalker DB: it's a pretty good set all around, and you can do some crazy things with it. If you have a ton of global recharge coupled with haste you can generally spam any combo whenever you need it. Stalkers are the only AT with dual blades that doesn't get blinding feint (they get buildup instead). A few perks to stalker DBs:

- Attack vitals is spammable and adds nice dot damage to your attack chain

- From hidden status, buildup + 1k cuts can dish out massive damage. 1k cuts has a huge cone too (90 degrees and 10' long) so it's not too tough to catch a lot of mobs with it.

- Against a lethal-resistant boss you can (if you have the rech to employ it) use this combo: BU + AS + placate + AS. The first 3 of these enable the empower combo, and the second AS will benefit from both BU and empower for a serious amount of damage.

Still learning new tricks on my 50 DB stalker, but there seems to be a lot of ways to play one. Hope this helps a bit with answering some of your questions.

I'll give ya my 2 cents on it since i have used both. I personally prefer mako for a stalker over GW, but to each his own.

Ghost widow:

Yes, the snipe sucks: looong cast time, loooong rech and meh damage. It's like tier 2 blast damage. Altho the ghost widow snipe -does- look cool. Soul storm is the ultimate looking hold in the game, but it has a long animation. No one will have a problem noticing the mob is held tho heh.

Shadowmeld is nice if your a resistance based toon or dont have softcapped defenses, otherwise is skippable. Dark blast is a nice ranged attack and can be easily put into an attack chain (however redraw for DBs, claw etc can suck).

Mako:

Waterspout is crazy, it's like unleashing a madman into a battle. Its basically a panic button because of its insane knockback, but can do decent dmg if the targets are immobilized w/ a -knockback component.

Hibernate is an ok power, I'm not one for phase powers but if you have no heal or have end problems i can see a use for this. I've had it before and kept forgetting to use it heh, with low hps a stalker really needs to pay attention to his health and gauge the difference between when it's appropriate to use. At lvl 50 a melee mob can knock off half your health in one shot, but I'd never consider using hibernate at 50% health for example. Decent for pvp i hear.

Spirit shark is -great- for a few reasons: knockback and fast recharge. If you are having problems with a boss you can keep it knocked on its butt permanently with this ability. Also, in pvp this powe does insane damage (like 180 per shot, plus it crits from hide).

Spirit shark jaws are awesome. It's cast time is very fast and it will bring down flying opponents (nothing quite like a 30 foot transparent shark leaping out of the ground and pulling a freakshow juicer out of the sky for a nice buttwhooping).

Both sets have pets, I haven't used either one but I'm sure they have their uses (if anything, the purple pet IOs aren't terribly expensive and 4 of them get you 16% regen, 45 hps and a 4% damage buff).

Again, I prefer mako as I think it is a little more effective. It's the more pvp orientated of the two as well, something to consider if you participate in that.

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Why does Blizzard disappear if the caster gets defeated while it's raining down?

This is so not fair!

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I two box with a lvl 50 ice/pain corr and have noticed that if I play the toon directly then blizzard is -never- a problem, but whenever I'm using it as a support toon for a melee and running it on a second machine blizzard usually ='s a debt badge button. If blizzard persisted after death it would be the most abused power in the entire game. The ice corruptor would just become a farmer's sacrificial lamb.

I vote to keep it the way it is. It's insanely powerful and with great power comes great debt if you can't figure out that you don't lead off with it into that group of 30 purple bosses.

That's the great thing about willpower, you can make it pretty dang nice without breaking the bank.

On a /fire armor brute? I don't think there are a lot of + resistance bonuses out there on sets, so I'd just slot for resistance IOs and focus on + rech and + hps; faster rech = more likely healing flames will be up, which is a cornerstone to that set. And added hps buys you time still for healing flames to pop up again.

Mind you that I don't play a fire armor brute but that's what I would shoot for. Then add tough for a little more breathing room and you can focus on regen as an afterthought. You can prob squeeze a decent amount of +regen in regardless. REgen is the second bonus in a set and there are +10%, +12% and +16% (purples) you can assemble, on top of the regen and regen/ recovery uniques. Without trying you could prob get in 200% easy along with the rech and hps.

Fire is a popular secondary so I'm sure you'll get some more opinions.

Nice to hear Mathias. I've been tinkering with mids and can get S/L defenses capped with one enemy, but my other defenses suffer. In my dream build I've gotten what I think is a decent balance of defenses/resistances/ haste (defenses: type 42% s/l, 38% c/f, 37% en/ ne, positional 23% ranged and 21% melee, resistances s/l 71%, f/c 23%, toxic 23%, 12% en/ ne; 65% haste), this should cap me with enough critters. I chose unstoppable for the hard targets and skipped on darkest night (prob a big no-no, but not sure my end would hold up with the number of toggles im running).

Been a fun ride so far to lvl 32, see how it goes once i meet my first dark ring mistress...

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Invuln is based off typed defense, so trying to build up positional defense is a waste. The two don't stack - only the highest value is used. Instead, try to build up your typed def as much as you can.

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I got my wires crossed there, I meant typed defense... TY for the correction. Those are some decent #'s Sarrate, thanks for posting that. And thanks for the insight on unstoppable Ragnar, funny that you happened to mention that as I was wondering if I should go unstoppable or darkest night. DN is always available but sucks end like a black hole. Unstoppable (slotted) looks like 80-90% resists vs everything but psi + a massive end regen boost but with a serious crash at the end. I'll have to experiment some on test and see if either fit my playstyle.

Thanks again guys

Hey guys, just made my first brute after all these years and figured I'd go "old school" and start out with invulnerability. I ran to mids and plugged in a rough lvl 50 build to see what I can squeeze out of it. The build looked okay, with @ low 30ish position defenses and almost perma-dull pain. What I am unsure of is how invincibility actually works: I know you get a defense buff based on how many critters are around you, does anyone have an idea of what the percentage is per mob? Since I solo alot I'd just like an idea of how much this power will actully improve my survival is all.

Edit: primary is DM btw.