StrykerX

I made a Time/Fire Defender and I was wondering whether you can stack Time Crawl's -recharge to really neuter an annoying boss or such, so I crafted a Power Analyzer to see what stacked and what didn't on it. From what I saw, nothing about Time Crawl stacks if you apply it twice to the same target... not the recharge debuff, not rhe -regen, not even the movement slow. Is this true or am I misreading things? And is that true of slows in general? (I rarely play sets with powerful slows so I've never really paid attention.)

Well, the good news is that 11.9 seems stable as long as I never alt-TAB out of the game and avoid windowed mode. The bad news is that I usually crash very quickly as soon as I try to switch to another application (like Mids or Herostats ) and windowed mode crashes. Ah well, back to 11.4 for me...

First, please leave the AT forums alone. If I have questions about a specific AT then the simplest, most logical place to go for answers is a forum based on that AT. If I have more general questions, like which AT to try a certain power set on or what AT is best for a certain task, then the general Archetypes and Powers forum is the place to go. There's no way to simplify the structure farther without making things more confusing because no AT plays enough like another to really merge them and since questions that get bumped off the first page are rarely answered you don't actually want high traffic in the individual AT forums. If there's some "the whole forum list should fit on one page" rule for web design then, respectfully, it does not apply to something as complex as a MMO. Besides, we can already collapse the various sections if for some reason we have an allergy to scroll bars...

I do agree that Player Events and Supergroup Recruiting are probably unnecessary since those are generally server-specific and therefore can just go in the server forums. I would also think the Screenshots and Multimedia forums could be merged. The Oceanic and European forums could probably be folded into the CoH General Discussion forum but I'd suggest polling the players from those areas first to be sure they don't mind. You might also fold Badges and Gladiators into the general Player Questions forum. Oh, and you could definitely merge the two PVP related forums.

But really, most of the existing forums need to be there. They're already as simplified as you can get without becoming muddled... if I want to know how Brute Electric Armor compares to the revised Energy Aura then I really don't want to wade through three pages of posts about Tanks or Scrappers. I'd much rather have to spin my scroll wheel for a second before clicking on a forum then wind up hunting through three times as many threads to find what I need.

I thought about Kinetics but I didn't think it meshed as well with Beam Rifle for two reasons:

1) Beam Rifle doesn't have a lot of mitigation and is single target focused, so a secondary that boosts survival seems to be the way to go. /Kin is great for damage but not so good at keeping you alive to deliver it.

2) Beam Rifle's only AoE that's actually available every spawn is a cone, so it plays best from range. /Kin needs to be in the middle of a spawn to get full benefit from Fulcrum Shift and needs to be close to an enemy to heal. I really dislike picking combos that force me to repeatedly jump back and forth between cone range and melee (that's why I skipped Fire Breath on my Fire/Fire Blaster and took Combustion instead). I'd much rather pair /Kin with a primary that has PBAoE or targeted AoE attacks.

Beam/Kin would probably be a great team build but I just think it would be annoying to solo with and I like to be able to solo well.

I'm trying a Beam/Cold big game hunter. High single target damage plus awesome single target debuffs, plus shields and some AoE debuffing to pull my weight on normal spawns.

Beam Rifle isn't necessarily bad, it's just specialized. Beam has great single target damage over time but it takes time to ramp up and you have poor every-spawn AoE capability... since most Blasters rely heavily on burst damage and AoEs that can be bad. If you want to dish out maximum damage to bosses, EBs, and AVs then Beam Rifle is going to rock (provided of course that you have a way to stay alive )... Ice would be more survivable but I believe Beam does outdamage it against hard targets where you can use Disintegration often. I'm actually considering a Beam/Ice Blaster since /Ice gives enough mitigation to keep a single target Blaster alive... on teams it should play like a squishy, ranged MA Scrapper: pick a boss, make it disappear, repeat.

I love slot levels... they generally make the last power I picked actually worth using. Picking up a cool heavy hitting attack is nice, but actually getting to use it at something approaching full power is better.

I believe in I21 they're removing the interrupt time and possibly reducing total cast time on Gun Drone, so good news.

Fire Sword Circle is hard hitting and fairly fast but only hits things in melee range, while Combustion is slower (especially since it's a DoT) but has a larger radius so usually hits more targets. I went with both (and no Fire Breath) on my Fire/Fire Blaster but she's built to pretty much permanently stay in melee range. For a DP/Fire Blaster I'd only take one of them though, since presumably you'll be spending a fair amount of time at range... probably FSC since it does more burst damage. I'd definitely skip Blazing Aura since anything in range of it is going to be in range of Burn and should generally have a life expectancy of about 0.2 seconds. Hot Feet is nice though, since it hits a large area and can provide a bit of mitigation by making things run away (a bit of Slow enhancement helps keep them in PBAoE range). On the other hand it's an end hog so if you plan to mainly fight at range and just move in for a few seconds at a time to use PBAoEs I'd skip it.

You may want to go with Smashing/Lethal defense with some ranged defense to back it up if you solo a lot. If you don't mind going redside long enough to take patron powers then Scorpion Shield is fantastic, or else you can go with the Ice epic (though I absolutely hate the walking ice cube look on a fire character). Another option is to go Force Mastery for Force of Nature and Temp Invulnerability and build for some decent ranged defense, or even Flame Mastery and go with Fire Shield and Rise of the Phoenix (which turns faceplants into mini-nukes).

I always 6-slot my first two attacks on a Blaster, simply because there's not really any way to make a seamless ranged attack chain without both of them. Plus even on Blappers who don't generally use single target ranged-only chains it's hard to pass up the extra ranged defense from a couple of Thunderstrike sets (pretty much the only thing I ever slot a Blaster ranged attack with after the mid 30s or so).

I believe Bots/Traps is the cheapest GM soloist (has been done using only SOs) so if cost is a factor that would be a good place to start, but ever since the MM pet AI got tweaked ranged pets are more annoying. Ill/Rad Controllers are probably the absolute best since with perma-PA they pretty much can't die, ever, to any single target unless they screw up... but that's an enormously expensive build. A Rad/Sonic Defender might be the best option... not as expensive as Ill/Rad and no worrying about pets.

That's assuming you want to do it the purist "no temp powers" way, which requires significant regen debuffing. If you're willing to get your -regen from temp powers then all sorts of things open up, like Brutes or Scrappers or even Blasters. I don't think there's any Incarnate powers that allow enough -regen to matter on a GM or enough damage to take one down at full regen, especially since you can pretty much guarantee that a GM will swat any Lore pets like flies without support powers backing them up (and if you're playing an AT with support powers you can get -regen).

Once I21 hits a Rad/Beam Rifle Defender might be an interesting choice. Beam Rifle is focused on single target damage and should be quite handy against hard targets.

I'd really like a martial arts themed Blaster secondary. Give it good solid melee attacks that don't glow or involve elemental damage plus a couple of gadgets and self buffs. Until we get that I find coloring bright Energy Melee a very dark color makes the glow almost invisible and works reasonably well for a natural attack set, but I'd rather have attacks that look like martial arts instead of big heavy "brick" style punches.

If you've only been playing 2 weeks then honestly what you need most is practice. Blasters are one of the trickiest archetypes to play, and Fire/Fire is one of the hardest Blaster combinations because you have no mitigation whatsoever, just damage. No high end build will substitute for learning things like which enemies to hit first, when to fall back and regroup, and which enemies have stuns or holds... you know, all that stuff Brute and Scrapper players never have to bother with.

I would suggest sticking to a basic build using SOs, common IOs, and a few cheap set IOs (don't worry about set bonuses yet, just go for really cheap uncommon (yellow) recipes that enhance two or three aspects of a power (like accuracy/damage/endurance IOs). Once you get a feel for the character and play him/her a while you can decide if you actually want to stick with it (again, Fire/Fire is hard mode and not everyone will enjoy it)... if you do then you can save up some inf and start on a higher end build.

Some characters are a lot easier than others to play using just SOs / common IOs, but none are "broken" without sets. On a good team you won't need a lot of the set bonuses that you would rely on solo but in some cases you'll still be hurting a lot compared to an IOed build... for instance, a Stone Armor Tank on a team without a Kin.

I wouldn't use common IOs though... you can frankenslot using a mix of cheap uncommon set IOs and a few commons cheaper than slotting all commons (many of the "junk" set recipes are under 1000 inf and don't need any rare salvage, most common recipes are more than that). I've fully outfitted a level 50 character for around 10-15 million inf before, and you'd have to work very hard not to have that much to spend. I'd suggest starting in the late 20s or early 30s and stick to level 26-40 IOs since the crafting costs really start going up after 40 for little extra benefit.

To softcap S/L on a Blaster:

1) Start with the Ice epic pool or (better option) the Scorpion patron pool. You'll have to go villain long enough to unlock patron powers but Scorpion Shield is great because it doesn't make you look like a walking ice cube and it gives Energy defense as well as Smashing and Lethal. You can go hero again after getting patron powers and not lose them, so figure on a little over a week total if you play every day to get the shield and go back to being a hero. Just be sure to spend any hero merits before switching alignment since you'll lose them. You'll have around 16-17% S/L defense (and Energy if you go Scorpion) once you slot the shield.

2) Now add additional defense from other powers. Weave is handy.. I tend to take Boxing or Kick and not slot them, take Tough and not actually run it (drop a Steadfast 3% defense IO in it, and a Gladiator's Armor 3% defense IO if you're spending stupid amounts of inf) and then grab Weave. Combat Jumping also adds a bit of defense and so does Maneuvers if you can spare the endurance.

3) Then get the rest of the way to 45% defense with set bonuses. This is the part that gets expensive. Kinetic Combat is handy for melee attacks (probably just Fire Sword unless you slot Boxing as a set mule) and Obliteration for PBAoEs (you'll have several of these). You can also slot two Rectified Reticle in Aim and Build Up (and Tactics if you go Leadership), plus there are a couple of other options depending on your build.

For reference, I use this build:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

You can get decent recharge while softcapping S/L defense (and nearly capping Energy too, if you go villain long enough to snag Scorpion Shield). My softcapped Fire/Fire has 56% global recharge not counting the Spiritual alpha, and that's with no purples. Add a couple of purple sets and Hasten plus the T4 Spiritual alpha and you could get Hasten down to a few seconds downtime without losing defense.

For a team build I'd say max recharge might be more useful, but for soloing you'll probably be better off with decent recharge and high defense unless you plan to use a lot of inspirations and try to steamroll things fast enough to get more insps before your existing ones wear off... I know that works well in ambush farms but in normal content I'd be surprised if it's a reliable tactic.