Sailboat

Just imagine what we'll be like with enhancements slotted. :P

I had a blast! No, more than that: I had a Freem!

Update: currently sitting at 13-going-on-14. Shared tanking duties with a Stone/ at the same level on a team of 8, and solo-tanked for 6 or 7. Still alive and punching! (Substantial credit must go to the team's buffers; at one point we had Cold, Forcefields, and Empathy support. That was a huge help as a baby Tanker.)

Isn't Shield weaker than Inv and Willpower? :P

I went Stone before and died at 13. Stone isn't "unkillable" until 33.

I have limited experience with Ice Melee, but I took a stab at an SO-only build.

+----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Built with SuckerPunch's Online Planner v5.0
+ http://planner.cohtitan.com/planner
+----------------------------------------------------------------
Archetype: Tanker
Primary: Fiery Aura
Secondary: Ice Melee
+----------------------------------------------------------------

01: Frozen Fists => Empty(1)
01: Fire Shield => Empty(1), Empty(3), Empty(3), Empty(5)
02: Ice Sword => Empty(2), Empty(7), Empty(7), Empty(13), Empty(17), Empty(19)
04: Healing Flames => Empty(4), Empty(9), Empty(9), Empty(11), Empty(11), Empty(13)
06: Frost => Empty(6), Empty(19), Empty(23), Empty(23)
08: Consume => Empty(8)
10: Combat Jumping => Empty(10)
12: Plasma Shield => Empty(12), Empty(15), Empty(15), Empty(17)
14: Super Jump => Empty(14)
16: Hurdle => Empty(16)
18: Health => Empty(18)
20: Stamina => Empty(20), Empty(21), Empty(21)
22: Acrobatics => Empty(22)
24: Ice Patch => Empty(24), Empty(25), Empty(25)
26: Burn => Empty(26), Empty(27), Empty(27), Empty(29), Empty(29), Empty(31)
28: Build Up => Empty(28), Empty(31), Empty(31)
30: Fiery Embrace => Empty(30)
32: Freezing Touch => Empty(32), Empty(33), Empty(33)
35: Greater Ice Sword => Empty(35)


This build still leverages the Ice Patch/Burn synergy. Your shields are 4-slotted on the assumption that you'll use one end reduction and 3 resist SOs in each; Healing Flames gets 3 recharge / 3 heal.

If you decide to go with a few IOs, the priority would be two -knb IOs which would enable you to dump Acrobatics for another power pick, and then frankenslotting your attacks for best affordable enhancement values, and then frankenslotting Healing Flames to get some edn reduction without giving up any recharge or healing.

Hey, I was present for this incident. (I was Ironclad, the Tanker). There was a lot of banter and chatter as we were setting up, and I would imagine that the TF leader had even more going on in tells and channels while assembling the team.

I would have had a hard time keeping track of everyone as well as Armeros did. I also got to see how Armeros responded after the misunderstanding and how Armeros treated the other players, and for what it's worth, I am persuaded this was just an accident and no harm or disrespect was intended.

I have the impression that the segregation of the green and yellow lines was partly intended to tend to segregate lower-level players from the higher-level zones. You could still get to the higher-level zones, sure, but generally it was more trouble, and it was unlikely to happen by accident.

Steel, the mid-level zone, was where they met (no green line in Skyway yet).

I’ve been having fun playing some “hardcore” characters recently -- characters who only have one chance in life; if defeated in battle, they are considered “killed.” So the object becomes, stay alive for as long as possible. We usually play on teams of characters using the same rule, and we try to keep each other alive, so it’s not a case of turtling up in personal Force Field and waiting while someone power-levels you.

But such a playstyle does favor defensive builds. It also puts an absolute premium on getting powers early -- I’ll need all the help I can get as the enemies get hairier. As of this writing the highest I’ve managed to get a “hardcore” character is 29, abusing the awesome power of Parry on a Broadsword Scrapper.

I’ve made a new Tanker with an eye toward helping my vulnerable fellows survive, but on a whim, I made a Fire/Dark Melee Tanker. Am I crazy to try a Fire Tanker in Hardcore? :P Never played this combo together, but I’ve heard the utility can be fun, and it should keep me on my toes. I’ve played one Dark Melee Scrapper before, but not on a Tanker, and I didn’t try out Touch of Fear then. I have somewhat more experience playing a Fire Tanker, although with different secondaries.

I’ve got a little build going but I could use some advice on the best power choices for staying alive (and contributing). I definitely will be rocking the two self-heal powers, and I want to get Tough relatively early. That said, the character will largely be self-financed, and IO sets are a long-term project at the very best, so I can expect not to be slathered with set bonuses until the distant future -- so I am in doubt as to whether to bother with Weave at all.

Also, one of the joys of Fire/Dark is supposed to be the two end recovery powers, but I find it hard to choose them early, and I feel like I am wasting some potential by not taking them until late. So far I haven’t ditched Fitness/Stamina; these teams move pretty fast despite playing cautiously, and I have a hard time imagining abandoning Stamina.

Here’s what I have so far:

+ Built with SuckerPunch's Online Planner v5.0
+ http://planner.cohtitan.com/planner
+----------------------------------------------------------------
Archetype: Tanker
Primary: Fiery Aura
Secondary: Dark Melee
+----------------------------------------------------------------

01: Shadow Punch
01: Fire Shield
02: Smite
04: Shadow Maul
06: Healing Flames
08: Fly
10: Blazing Aura
12: Plasma Shield
And a long-term projection:

14: Swift
16: Siphon Life
18: Health
20: Stamina
22: Boxing
24: Tough
26: Burn
28: Soul Drain
30: Touch of Fear
32: Fiery Embrace
35: Dark Consumption
38: Midnight Grasp

Issues:

How good is Touch of Fear for staying unharmed? Should I move it earlier, and at the expense of what? Soul Drain, and Tough on a Fire Tanker, seem too good to bump later; YMMV.

Burn gives me my immobilize resist and some protection (from the “avoid” mechanic)…also, there tend to be a lot of controllers on the hardcore teams so far, so I might be able to leverage area immobilizes.

I am hoping to score a -knb IO before I go mad or die.

Obviously I will be skipping Rise of the Phoenix. :P

Here’s a different take:

+----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Built with SuckerPunch's Online Planner v5.0
+ http://planner.cohtitan.com/planner
+----------------------------------------------------------------
Archetype: Tanker
Primary: Fiery Aura
Secondary: Dark Melee
+----------------------------------------------------------------

01: Shadow Punch
01: Fire Shield
02: Healing Flames
04: Shadow Maul
06: Fly
08: Consume ***
10: Blazing Aura
12: Plasma Shield
14: Swift
16: Siphon Life
18: Health
20: Stamina
22: Touch of Fear
24: Burn
26: Boxing
28: Soul Drain
30: Tough
32: Weave
35: Fiery Embrace
38: Midnight Grasp

***Possibly replace Consume with Smite?

Thinking in this version is, Dark Consumption is of limited value late; Consume might help before Stamina. But…will I have enough attacks? And is Smite skippable? It’s nice to be able to chain several Dark Melee attacks and stack the debuffs.

This version also takes Tough later -- too late? I do like that 70% Smashing/lethal resistance Tough brings me to. If I shift Burn back farther (to take Boxing at 24 and Tough at 26) , will I get immobilized a lot in my 20s?

Any thoughts or comments on this silly project are welcomed.

Yeah, I thought there must be something...I Googled and found a few discussions but no actual calculator...and for some reason some Evony calculators, go figure.

Thanks for the advice.

Is there such a thing as an attack chain calculator utility? Where we coould put in the names of attacks...or at least manually enter the stats for animation time, arcanatime, and global recharge and the recharge in the power, and look for gaps and/or maximize dps? I've been sort of manually figuring with pen and paper, but if there's a better way, it would be nice to know.

It seems the spouse has invited guests for dinner. This will impact or preclude my participation, sorry to say. If I can find some time, I will log on.

I like knockback. Two of the characters that were part of my formative experience learning the game were a Forcefield/Energy Blast defender and an Ice/Storm Controller.

I never understood the complaints about single-target knockback. If I Crane-Kick a guy and for some reason forgot to aim him into a wall, I will go chase him down and finish him -- I'm a Scrapper, I kill stuff, it's my problem, why would that bother anyone? Yet I have heard complaints about that, weirdly.

But I do realize that area knockback can be an irritant. It scatters groups often quite badly. Few things are as baffling as lining up one's big cone attack only to have the foes all swept away and scattered (usually by a low-damage attack, too).

You can use altitude and angle to greatly reduce the irritating aspects of area knockback. You can also use timing. Either go first or (better still) last -- don't wait until the tanker has gathered a crowd tightly around him to abruptly undo his efforts, go before he's done the work of clumping them or (much better) as a finishing move when they're whittled down and your attack will defeat them.

For some reason Peacebringers are the worst for this. I have a (low-level) Peacebringer and he has only one area knockback attack so far -- do they get more, or are they doing all the scatter with that one attack? They seem to always wait JUST until everyone is targeting the clump or just BEFORE the area debuff or control hits to scatter everything.

I recently teamed with a dedicated knockback specialist in "hardcore" mode, where any defeat is treated as permanent (the character will be deleted from the SG if he or she is defeated). You'd think that would be extra scary, since we always hear about knockback endangering the team. Truth is, it probably helped a lot by providing mitigation to our low-level characters. My melee character (Broadsword Scrapper) occasionally saw the targets swept out of his Slice cone, but that was only sort of startling; it wasn't very dangerous. I guess I adapted mentally to the unusual requirements of our playstyle making every scrap of mitigation valuable.

But generally, I can see how area knockback irritates. Used thoughtfully, though, it's pretty easy to put up with unless one is just emotional about knockback generally...like say, if your parents were killed by knockback.

Although that might have the reverse effect, come to think of it, and cause you to take on the identity of the Knock-Bat, who knows AoE users are a superstitious, cowardly lot, and sets out to terrorize teammates and rearrange evildoers across Paragon City!

I can't explain the appeal, but I feel it. A new Iron Eagles character with no enhancements slotted is as interesting to me as one of my tricked-out 50s, even the few with purples.

Also, you can slot Reactive Armors in your resistance toggles to get typed resistances. I don't think you can get positional defenses in those powers and slots you're already taking.

For instance it's possible to play this game in space. I'm not talking about a Moon Zone, I'm talking about City of Heroes developers personally leasing a Shuttle and boosting me, the player, into orbit, while I play on the world's longest-range wireless network.

but I'm not betting that theoretical possibility will occur any time soon. And it will certainly be a purchasable Booster Pack.