Schnibbley

Thanks to all who helped test "City of Teamspeak" over the past month!
It's been pretty empty during the day, and during the busiest hami raid, server load was well below limits, so for the re-launch, CoT's voice quality has been greatly increased -- Ventrilo's got nothin' on it now!

"City of Teamspeak" is a free high-capacity gathering ground for all City of Heroes/Villains players. Chat or find teams in the public channels, or create a private channel for your group. For details, and to download the client, visit http://cot.peregate.com

[ QUOTE ]

A free TeamSpeak server has been set up as a meeting place for City of Heroes/Villains players!

Visit http://cot.peregate.com for details.

The server password is: BeNice

Enjoy!

-Anvil


[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent guide! You've captured exactly what makes the set worthwhile. Everyone who might play or team with a TA defender should read this!

Good intro to the med. pool! Some more detail on Aid Self:

Slotted with 2 interrupt reducers, you can fire it off between "ticks" of DoT (damage over time, like fire). Just hit Aid Self when a damage number appears on your toon, and it will complete before the next tick.

Aid Self now offers protection from low-magnitude disorient. This is invaluable for squishies facing Trolls, Tsoo ancestral spirits, brawling Crey and Family... you get the idea. Fire it off before every fight! Just watch out for hammer Freaks; their rapid-fire disorients often break through.

I recommend slotting 2 interrupt, 2 heal, 1 endurance, and 1 recharge.

Stealth reduces flight speed and run/walk speed, but not jump speed.
(To confirm this, I ran several time trials using an autojump bind to cross a zone, with and without Stealth enabled.)

Now, with ordinary jumps (as opposed to Super Jump) you spend enough time on the ground for Stealth to have a measurable effect -- but it is only measurable over long distances and even then is not significant for any practical purposes.

Maybe I misunderstood, but it sounded like the one-shot code prevents you from losing more than 99% of your (max) HP in one tick.
So, if you're at 992/1000 HP, and one-or-more attacks totalling 1500 damage hit you in a single server tick, you are left at 3 HP.
Is this how it will work, or is optimism coloring my interpretation of the original post?

Nice guide, especially for late-game Stoners! I've only got a few quibbles:

Though Heavy Mallet undoubtedly has the most satisfying *crunch* to it, over the course of a fight, here's the damage you can get from your basic attacks (assuming 1rech,3dam):
1.52bps - Stone Fist
1.24bps - Stone Mallet
1.21bps - Heavy Mallet
Also, keep in mind that you end up doing the most overkill/wasted damage with Heavy Mallet vs foes with little health remaining.

Taunt: Face it, unless you're on a permanent team that's got combat down to a science, half the fights involve a few small clusters of opponents. A stone tank can rarely keep aggro of more than one cluster without Taunt.

Health: Sure, slot it, but given the tiny benefit, it should be your -lowest- priority.

Perhaps a sort of arena economy would work. Meaning, don't bother trying to balance the costs, but set them to fluctuate up and down depending on the popularity of the gladiator. Soon the most powerful gladiators would be the most expensive, and vice-versa. Self-balancing.

People would try to find those "best-kept secret" gladiators which are not popular (and therefore cheap) but surprisingly effective -- perhaps only in combination with a particular other cheap gladiator. Of course, any effective tactic will catch on, thus raising its cost and balancing things again.

(the folowing bit is for numbers people)
The total cost of all gladiator types (added together) would not change unless new monsters were added to the game. Say 1 of each type of gladiator, all together, costs 1 million points. The cost of any individual gladiator will be a percentage of that 1 million. So if a Freak Tank starts out at a cost of 400 (0.04% of that 1 million), and its popularity raises the cost to 2138 (0.2138%) the percentage costs of all other gladiator types will be lowered slightly to keep the total at 1 million.

THANK YOU!!! You rock, Pilcrow.

So for example...
If Hasten has a base recharge time of 440 seconds, and lasts 120 seconds,
and using Pilcrow's numbers for the effect of 6 even SO enhancements...

(hastened rechg time for 120 seconds) + (normal rechg time for remaining seconds)
(.36*440)*(120/(.38*440)) + (.48*440)*(100-(120/(.38*440)))
(.36*440)*(120/158.4) + (.48*440)*(100-(120/158.4))
(.36*440)*.747474... + (.48*440)*.252525...
118.4 + 53.3
171.7 seconds final recharge time (51.7 seconds downtime)
for Hasten with 6 even SO enhancements.

I have a feeling working the time for +3 enhancements will be hideously complicated, so I think I'll just wait and time it when ED hits Test.

Can any math whiz (or CoV player) tell me how, exactly, this affects recharge reducers? I need a starting point in order to apply the 85% and 15% numbers, but I can't seem to figure out the current math for how recharges work.

I'd like to figure out what sort of recharge times I'd get on things like Hasten and Dull Pain using 4 SO's, 6 SO's, even-level, +3's, etc. TIA.

The fear effects are consistent -- powers that affect a patch of ground (burn, ice slick, rain of fire, etc.) mobs will attempt to flee and often cannot be taunted back into range. Mobile powers (blazing aura, shutgun, snowstorm, etc.) mobs will occasionally flee but can usually be taunted back into range. Makes sense to me.

Granted, my highest Burn tank is only level 25, but I still find Burn quite useful -- as long as there's a controller or dark defender along to immobilize the crowd once I've gotten them in BA range. I'm fire/fire but I imagine fire/ice tanks can still solo with Burn thanks to Ice Slick.

However, Burn needs to generate more hate than it does. The terror effect makes sense, but a tanker primary power should not direct aggro away from the tank and towards the rest of the team. If the mobs aren't held let them flee, but then have them turn and shoot ME, not the squishies!

The recharge increase needed to happen, but with this and the damage tweak we need immobilization protection somewhere else, to allow for useful non-Burn builds.

Ooops! Looking at that Solo Axe Scrapper build, I realize I was fresh off the drunken success of my "ultimate" inv/fire herd tank and made a serious mistake in carrying over his level 24-30 strategy. I'll be using my free respec immediately to fix the Axe Scrapper as follows:
24) --> Build Up==> Rechg(24)
26) --> Resist Energies==> DmgRes(26)
28) --> Resist Elements==> DmgRes(28)
30) --> Temp Invulnerability==> EndRdx(30)
32) --> Tough Hide==> DefBuf(32)

The Solitary Axe Scrapper

Here's the build I've used for a fun and successful axe scrapper, using the inv/axe combination. It's designed for single-target/solo play (with the option for a lv40 AoE respec) but thanks to invincibility has also done very well in teams...

Pre-respec powers:
[/b]01) --> Resist Physical Damage==> DmgRes(1)
01) --> Gash==> EndRdx(1)Acc(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(7)Dmg(9)Dmg(31)
02) --> Chop==> EndRdx(2)Acc(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(7)Dmg(9)Dmg(31)
04) --> Dull Pain==> Rechg(4)Rechg(15)Rechg(15)Rechg(17)Rechg(17)Rechg(25)
06) --> Combat Jumping==> Jump(6)
08) --> Unyielding==> EndRdx(8)DmgRes(19)DmgRes(19)DmgRes(33)DmgRes(33)DmgRes(34)
10) --> Beheader==> EndRdx(10)Acc(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(13)Dmg(13)Dmg(31)
12) --> Hurdle==> Jump(12)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Health==> Heal(16)
18) --> Invincibility==> EndRdx(18)TH_Buf(34)TH_Buf(34)TH_Buf(37)
20) --> Stamina==> EndRec(20)EndRec(21)EndRec(21)EndRec(25)EndRec(27)EndRec(27)
22) --> Swoop==> EndRdx(22)Dmg(23)Dmg(23)Dmg(29)Dmg(29)Dmg(33)
24) --> Resist Energies==> DmgRes(24)
26) --> Resist Elements==> DmgRes(26)
28) --> Tough Hide==> DefBuf(28)
30) --> Kick==> Dmg(30)
32) --> Tough==> DmgRes(32)
35) --> Cleave==> EndRdx(35)Acc(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(37)Dmg(37)
38) --> Pendulum==> EndRdx(38)Acc(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)

- At level 17 (when you buy your level 20 DO's!) trade out the Acc in your attacks for another Dam -- you'll have one rough level to Invincibility, then you're golden.

- At level 22 (when you buy your level 25 SO's!) trade out the EndRdx in Unyielding and Invincibility for a DamRes and a ToHitBuff, respectively.

-Temp Invulnerability is NOT a must-have for tanks, and a waste for an axe scrapper. Before Stamina, you won't have the endurance to run it AND scrap, and after Invincibility you won't need it until late game when Tough is a better alternative.

This build let's you axe-scrap to your heart's content without End worries, with as much damage as some scrappers and and much better defense!

"Tourmaline" is my freshest model on Triumph:
Shot 1
Shot 2
Shot 3

Look forward to seeing her without the armor once she turns 20!

No soup for you!
You do get 5 stars, though.

If you hop over to the official suppression thread in Test Server ,you'll see that the perma-suppression brought on by using debuff toggles is a big source of complaints. I just tested it again on Live a couple minutes ago, and indeed, my Super Jumping radiation defender is reduced to Hurdle speeds until 4 seconds after turning of all debuff toggles

Terrific guide, TopDoc!

A couple comments:
- DeBuffs do count as attacks for purposes of travel power suppression.
- In my experience (with just one SO jump enh each in Hurdle and Combat Jumping) the combination is just slow enough to control well, hopping around a battle.

The Hero Builder (http://home.comcast.net/~SherkSilver/index.html) by Sherk Silver has the a toggle cost calculator (based on the same math/numbers) built-in.

There are a (very few) powers where the end cost has not been corrected in the last update, but you can edit them.

Nice guide! I can't resist adding my comments on the pool powers:

Hasten, hover, stealth, and combat jumping all worthwhile defensive toggles for blasters. Granted, power pool limitations prevent any Stamina build from taking all four, but any you can take will stack.

Hasten (5%) of course has a wonderful secondary effect. There's no defense like a good offense.

Same goes for Hover (5%), and the Defensive Maneuverability Benefit of a few extra speed enhancements here is enormous.

Stealth's cost makes it worth an end-reducer, and the reduction in aggro you'll draw (solo and teamed) makes this one worthwhile even if the def bonus was 0%. If you've got spare slots in your build, slotting the 7.5% def up to 15.4% (1 end, 5 def) is not a complete waste, either.

The endurance cost of Combat Jumping is so low (less than 5 end/min) it's like getting 6.6% defense for nothing. The excellent immobilize protection is also a life saver versus certain foes. Pre-SJ, Speeders will want to stay at 5% def and put a Jump enhancement in here.

http://www.arscoh.com/coh/calcs/toggleendcosts.html does not work either.

The problem is that arscoh.com apparently vanished in late April, at least from the DNS servers in my part of the internet.

That was a damn useful calculator I don't suppose the domain still resolves for anyone who can pass along the IP address?

I thought I should add that Combustion (and taunt if you're a big team player) is really important before respec. Before level 27 (or 22 for those who can buy SOs early thanks to wealthy alts) the damage from Blazing Aura isn't enough to consistently keep the baddies nearby.
Spiffy AOE damage aside, I can't imagine living without Combustion and its huge provoke radius for pulling mobs in close for BA and Burn. With 4-5 damage DOs in BA, if I don't fire off Combustion or Taunt regularly I see bosses/lts and even some minions running out of my aura so they can turn around and shoot at me in relative safety. Gets a little better every level, which makes sense as the taunt duration for tanker attacks is determined by damage.