Santorican

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

I want to share a little slice of life with you, in the hopes of coming up with some kind of unexpected epiphany, and I say this quite seriously.

I've been talking about not wanting to bother with the Incarnate system for some time now, and as a result have been levelling up "alts." However, I figured "Hey! I have 50s and I ought to play THEM at some point, right? Let's pick my old flagship villain and see what I can do with him?" So I dug up my old Mids build and was just about to set to respeccing a character I haven't really played much in years when I thought to check what said villain can actually do should I go ahead and give him his respec. I was disappointed to find the following in his contacts list:

*Marcus Valerius - repeatable mission contact
*Senator Aquila - he disappeared as soon as I called him
The Architect Studio Manager - whom I apparently haven't spoken with yet
Borea - repeatable mission contact
*Warzone Operative Braun - repeatable mission contact IN A PVP ZONE
*Sister Airlia
*Mender Ramiel

Of those, the only two meaningful contacts that I have are Ramiel and Airlia. Ramiel has around four missions in one arc, Airlia has around six missions split between two arcs. All together between them, they give me around a day's worth of content, especially now that I'm off work for some time over (orthodox) Easter. So, OK, let's say I run with those two. Then what? I literally have no other contacts for this Brute, because I had to run them all just to get to level 50, and I still had to run paper missions for the last level or so, back before Experience Scaling.

I'm really pressed for answers here. Yes, I'm aware I could just run, err... The ITF? The Apex and Tin Mage stuff? The Lambada and BARF Trials? To a point, I suppose. But even were I not disinclined to run "Task Forces" back-to-back, that won't last me much longer, either, at least not unless I plan to grind them endlessly, which I don't.

I find myself right now grasping at straws. I like my villain, and I do want to play him a bit. But I just can't bring myself to commit to all the work I'd need to do to make him playable again (he had a horrid build even before) without something to look forward to at the end of the yellow brick road. There's planning a respec, there's enacting it, there's sorting the MESS this makes of my trays, there's redoing his old binds, probably fixing some of his hideous old costumes, possibly redoing his bio since the one he's using now is six years old and my writing skills have improved considerably. There's a lot of work to put into this guy, and I just don't see the point right now.

All this work, and for what? So I can run a couple of short arcs and be out of ideas once more? I've run papers with him. Run them into the ground. I've run PvE missions in PvP zones. Braun's bar is full. I've run more than enough faceless fill-in-the-blanks repeatable content to last me a life time, and I just so happen to have run almost all the non-repeatable 45-50 content. So what do I do now?

Serious question here. I like the character, I want to play him, but I can't bring myself to sinking down what will end up being an entire day fixing his sorry *** if all I have to look forward is "repeatable content." Because beyond that, I'm out of ideas, and it seriously sucks. I like this character.

Originally Posted by Combat

Every day, in the various archtype forums, someone asks for a build. Most of these threads go basically ignored, unless a reward is thrown in (like in the Defender forum's latest build thread). There are even more people who don't make these threads, and go around with a very small knowledge base about builds. Because there isn't really a "build" forum (despite the Market and Invention forum, which generally focuses on individual sets and enhancements), I'd like to have a thread where people could see example builds collected in one place, and to have a place to discuss building philosophies. Hopefully, when someone asks for a [X]/[X] build with softcapped defense, we will be able to point to posts X, Y, Z in this thread. Or, alternatively, requests could be taken in the thread for a new build.

So, without further ado, I'd like to start by showing an example and format.

Build: Dark Melee/Shield Defense
Price Range: Infinite
Goals: Soft-capped Defense/Near Perma-Hasten
Weaknesses to be improved on: Soul Drain Slotting, accuracy against +4s
Incarnate: Yes, Cardiac Core, T4 Ion Core, T4 Interface Radial, T4 Warworks Core, T4 Rebirth Radial

Originally Posted by Werner

Yeah, I have a tier 1 interface and haven't even unlocked the others. Only one character. But I haven't been playing much, honestly.

I don't think it's any secret how you do it fast, though. Just run the trials over and over with a good group. Bam bam bam. Being rich can speed it up even further, though it seems unnecessary, and the prices seem kind of ridiculously high.

Originally Posted by firespray

YOU GRIND MONKEY, AND YOU LIKE IT!!!!!!!

It took me probably 20-25 runs or so to get all my slots unlocked, and I pretty much had all the stuff necessary to slot up to T3 in each of them by the time all 4 were unlocked.

Originally Posted by Another_Fan

This is from the website

http://www.cityofheroes.com/game_inf...rchetypes.html




By far the most damaging ? Not hardly.

Does anyone really think blasters are offensive juggernauts ? Having more attacks than you actually need hardly qualifies you as an offensive juggernaut. Its like saying a swiss army knife is a weapon of mass destruction because it has all those blades.

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

Ok, obvious benefits of Barrier are obvious what with "the new softcap" on trials and the +res, but for regular content my old stale softcap is just fine and I don't plan on grinding trials until my eyes bleed anyway. Plus, so many other people are taking Barrier.

I don't need extra mez protection and already have a spammable self-heal in Siphon Life. Although my self-healless /SR Scrapper will (eventually) be all over Rebirth like a cheap prom dress.

On the other hand +recharge is always nice and the debuff resistance looks pretty sweet, and I'm not seeing it used much. Can anyone comment on its usefulness? It immediately made me think of ACU "all your powers are tiny dots" patches, KoA caltrop spam, dual Master Illusionists both popping Fluffies and those annoying seers with their annoying Drain Psyche, and being able to tell all those things to suck tentacles, but how useful is it in practice?

Originally Posted by EvilGeko

Hoarding is a disease.

Burn them all in one mission. It will be cathartic.

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

There's a difficulty slider isn't there? When you can blow through +4x8 with no risk of dying, then complain.

Originally Posted by Amy_Amp

It's no WM/ea for sure.