Rigel_Kent

Diet, exercise, or a combination of both.

Estimate your ideal weight. If you wish to maintain the same weight, skip this step. If you wish to change your weight, note the ideal weight calculated, adjusting upward or downward if you happen to know that you're unusually big or small framed.

Estimate your basal metabolic rate. If you wish to maintain the same weight, input your current weight. If you wish to change your weight, input your ideal weight as estimated above. This calculator is accurate for adults only!

The number of calories you eat daily should equal your basal metabolic rate plus the average number of calories you burn daily doing exercise. If you do no exercise, that's fine (it makes the math easy and gives you more time for City of Heroes), but make sure you get all the fiber, protein, and nutrients you need on the limited amount of calories you're allowed. Also keep in mind that exercise has health benefits other than maintaining healthy weight; it is protective against osteoporosis, hypertension, etc.

Example: I'm a 5' 9.5" 30 year old male. My current weight is 150#. I have selected an ideal weight of 145# because I'm unusually small boned and not very muscular. My basal metabolic rate at 145# will be about 1648 calories per day. I'm very active, burning an average of 300 calories per day exercising. I will gradually reach and maintain my ideal weight if I eat about 1648 + 300 = 1948 calories per day.

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maybe if they changed all the -end to -recovery? or added a bit of -recovery in all the powers?

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Small chance for very short duration -100% recovery. It's like the most annoying possible way to implement recovery debuffs. You can't enhance the chance, you can't enhance the duration, and enhancing the debuff amount is overkill.

I'd rather see elec attacks get a set amount of medium duration, smaller magnitude (but still stackable and enhanceable) -recovery, just like most other attack debuffs. None of that chance stuff, either.

So, for example, Charged Bolt might go from:

* Current CB: 30% chance of +2.6 endurance to self, -7% endurance to target, 20% chance of -100% recovery to target for 2 seconds

to:

* Less annoyingly random CB: +0.8 endurance to self, -7% endurance to target, -7% recovery to target for 6 seconds

Or even drop the rather silly self end gain to beef up the debuffs:

* Debuff heavy CB: -8% endurance to target, -8% recovery to target for 6 seconds

And don't forget to key it to the Ranged EndDrain modifier so defenders get the endmod bonus they're supposed to have:

* Proper Defender CB: -10% endurance to target, -10% recovery to target for 6 seconds

Powerful, no, but at least it gives us something to play with.

I'd guess Archery/Mental blasters do well. Lethal damage shreds through Abominations, Blazing and Subdual interrupt Mortificator rez and Enbalmed and Mage kamikazes, psi damage deals with clocks and spectrals, Aim helps you spike stuff, and you have Fistful/Scream for AoE. No Build Up, but only /Energy has Build Up for Positron anyway.

Ice and Psi are both excellent secondaries. Ice puts out more damage, while Psi excels at recharge denial.

Remember that dual builds are a boon to traditionally "team only" sets like Empathy, Force Fields, and Sonic. Your second build can be fine tuned for soloing. This soloing build can also serve double duty as a tanking build if you're on a pick up group in need of a point man; add knockback protection (which you want when soloing anyway) and take the lead.

Alright. I'm going to have to agree with the forum majority on this one. So many people in the game have their heads on completely backwards concerning what powers are preemptive (e.g. "stay close for heals", Healing Aura on auto) and what powers are reactive (e.g. "zzz for cm"). So that's the most likely explanation: the leader's head needed a good 180 degree turn clockwise.

Problem: The game is designed for defense buffs to be boostable, but the game is not designed for damage resistance buffs to be boostable. If damage resistance buffs were boostable, then every damage buff in the game, from Fulcrum Shift to Defiance, would boost them. Weirdness ensues.

Solution: Unfortunately Castle only has two tools to prevent resistance buffs from being boosted. One tool is to flag individual line items [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs]. This solution means the defense part of the shields works as expected, but the shields' resistance is both unbuffable and unenhanceable. The other tool is to flag the entire power [Not Affected by Buffs]. This solution makes the resistance part of the shields work as expected, but it makes the defense unboostable. Castle was stuck trying to pick the less annoying of two annoying options.

If Castle ever got a third tool coded for him, specifically to make a line item enhanceable but not buffable, then the cold shields could be made to fully work as expected. It'd probably be useful for other powers, too. So whoever the nitty gritty numbers coder guy is, I hope this is on his to-do list!

What about using the median instead?

I don't see why MOO should suffer because the devs gave underlings inappropriate rewards.

I'm a little surprised the GMs are still instructed to ban badge farms, when the badges are all getting removed from the game in the next patch anyway. I don't see an upside to it.

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preemptive heals set up

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From the words "set up" the leader probably meant "Healing Aura on auto." Which is not preemptive, and often not even healing.

As stated above, you can anticipate long animation, high damage attacks by looking at the icons, and you can time your heals to hit right after the damage hits. But this is a highly advanced skill, not something you merely "set up," and honestly I've never seen anyone use it. So I can't imagine your leader is asking you for something nobody's ever seen.

(Except that one time four Gardvords simultaneously managed to hit a Forted blaster on my team with their sniper-level rock throws, and I miraculously got Absorb Pain timed to hit exactly between rocks number two and three. The blaster's life bar flashed greenyellowredgreenyellowred but he hung in there in time for Absorb Pain to recharge again. I got ridiculously lucky though, I doubt that's something anyone can reliably do in this game, except maybe with Respites and knockback protection.)

This is an awful lot of metaphysics over a simple missable reward. The real question that needs to be asked is whether missable rewards are good for the game.

Although there are some good combinations for small teams (a mix of three empathy defenders comes to mind), keep in mind that the game is fairly easy and fairly well balanced. Extreme minmaxing isn't required to have fun. So I'd make it a bigger priority to find archetypes that match your individual playstyles.

But to give you some ideas to start with:

I think Defenders work very well in small teams (such as a trio). I think Empathy in particular works well in small teams, but not so much on larger teams.

On the other hand, I find Tankers and Controllers don't work so well in small teams, but do great in large teams.

I believe Blasters work well in all size teams, buff/debuff sets other than Empathy work well in all size teams, and Scrappers are geared toward soloing but can be built to team like a blaster or tanker as well.

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1. Crane kick
... functionally identical to power thrust from EM ...

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I read your post title and was just about to suggest precisely this. It's a great idea.

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2. Thunder Kick
Similar to the scrapper attack, this version will have a 10 second recharge and hit substantially harder

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Why not a simple port of Crippling Axe Kick?

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3. Sticky Hands
... Parry ...

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A good illustration of why the blaster defense stigma is silly. I (and I suspect many other readers) had a kneejerk ZOMG OVERPOWERED response to this, but when you do the numbers, really, it's fine. 14% base defense to melee and smashing doesn't mean all that much, even if stacked, because they're two very unpopular defense types for the AT. In fact, it might even be skippable.

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4. Storm Kick

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Why not a simple port of Eagles Claw?

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7. Foresight
... I thought a bit of mez resistance might, however, be able to sneak in...

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Good luck with that. A stealthless Placate might be an easier sell.

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9. Eagles Claw
Similar to the Scrapper Power, this one has a 20 second recharge and really REALLY hurts.

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Neh, this set doesn't need another vanilla melee attack, even if it is a Total Focus. What about a teleporting Total Focus instead, like a shieldless Shield Charge, with or without a small aoe?

You may target an anchor debuff on a Detention Fielded NPC. That NPC will become the anchor. The single phased NPC will not be affected by the debuff, but everything around it will be debuffed.

Same if you Detention Field an NPC that is already a debuff anchor. The single phased NPC will no longer be affected by the debuff, but will remain the anchor, and everything around it will be debuffed.

Short version: Yes, phasing then anchoring a target, or anchoring then phasing a target, are both potentially useful strategies.

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Most of the time you get bombarded with ranged attacks from melee mobs, just standing there range attacking you...

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I've gotten good results by using Assault sets instead of Melee sets where I'm able. NPCs still have a blast or two, but the blasts don't blow away the ranged attacks, and the NPCs will close to melee.

If all you're looking at is easy versus challenging, well, you're doing yourself a disservice. People who get to level 50 on a scrapper only know how to play scrappers. People who get to level 50 on a (shudder) pure healer only know how to play pure healers. And trust me, it shows.

So go Dark defender.

It's tougher to play, but you will learn everything you need to know about the game getting to level 50. Such as level 1's lesson, "heals are nice occasionally to keep myself alive, hell with you deadweights," and level 12's lesson, "care bear stare ftw," and level 38's lesson, "everything dies now." By level 50 you've tanked, you've controlled, you've blasted. You can switch to any AT you like and do superbly.*

Choice of secondary's up to you. Pair it up with a varied secondary, /Sonic or /Psy, for a really steep learning curve that'll leave you a pro at 50. Or pair it up with a powerhouse secondary, such as /Ice, /Rad, or /Archery, to have a strong level 50 damage dealer to build wealth for new alts. Or pair it up with /Elec /Energy or /Dark if your concept demands, though I don't really recommend those sets with Dark Miasma, they just don't seem to play right to me.

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* Fair warning: You may not want to switch to another AT. In that case, might as well roll a stormy and get yourself really addicted to defenders.

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I'll take a healer(the bad kind) almost anytime I'm doing normal PvE missions. I'll just use them as perma-fillers.

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I wish I could be that laid back! They annoy me too much, I don't like my fillers holding up the start of the mission with "gather" and saying silly things like "stay close for heals."

As you've noticed, Dark Miasma has defense covered.

Radiation brings to the table lots of AoE attacks. Some of them are a little slow animating, true, but man oh man the procs you can slot in those babies. A defender with Achilles Heel in every blast? Yes, Mr. Defender, blast all you want, please!

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I feel like you and I must play a different game. This forum is for City of Heroes, right? Here is where Empathy gets Fortitude, Regeneration Aura, Recovery Aura, Clear Mind and Adrenaline Boost, right?

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Compared to the stronger buff/debuff sets? Ho and hum. Fort and AB look good on paper, but too often you only benefit from one aspect of each buff, and that makes them too short in duration and too long in recharge for what they're actually worth. In fact, if there weren't so much buff/debuff hate among the devs right now, I'm positive Empathy would be on the short list of sets deserving of dev love. Heck, just look how Pain Domination turned out.

Not to say Empathy's not useful, but it takes more player skill to get the same level of performance. Or certain specialized setups, such as Hamidon raids and Empathy duos, that favor Empathy (by requiring +regen in Hamidon's case, or by actually using all aspects of Fort and AB in Empathy duo's case).

Fire/Fire isn't short on AoEs. I'd take Burn only if you want a second "drop" AoE to damage future targets. Rain of Fire and Burn don't have to wait for pets, rezzers, phasers, etc. to become valid targets, just drop them and the instant they become targetable, they start taking damage.

:sweatdrop:

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Problem is, people set the bar too high for empaths.

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Problem is, other buff/debuff sets set the bar too high for Empathy. It's just not that good a set.

This is precisely why Congress enacted a DMCA safe harbor and takedown-putback process. The safe harbor protects Internet service providers (such as NCSoft), and the takedown-putback process protects Internet service users (such as City of Heroes players) from bogus copyright claims.

And really, what could be more bogus than copyright claims spammed by third parties (i.e. griefers) until the petition lottery serves up a quick-to-generic GM? No due process involved at any point, either; nobody who knows a damn thing about copyright law ever puts a finger on a button.

This will not be the last time NCSoft's decision not to use the DMCA safe harbor will bite either them or us in the you-know-what.

I'm tolerant of the word "healer" at face value -- either someone who has a power that heals others, or someone who specializes in such powers, either is fine. That's how the word is used on these forums.

My problem is the word "need" which, in game, just about always accompanies the word "healer," whether it's typed out explicitly or not. Team leaders broadcast they're looking for a healer, teammates ask the leader if they should get another healer, healers broadcast their availability for any team that may be looking for one -- and underlying all of it is that false assumption of need. Which is in itself grounded on the false assumption that heals>buffs>debuffs, as in some other RPGs.

(Though I have discovered a certain naughty joy in using debuffs in presumably heal-centric classic console RPGs. Final Fantasy IV Hardtype for instance gets surprisingly easier when you stat hose enemies with Toad/Mini... but ugh, debuff immune enemies and bosses, what a pain.)

You picked a not-so-great primary and a not-so-great secondary. If it's raw performance you're looking for, just about any other combination of defender sets will do.