Talionis

I'm looking at Ice/Kin Controller. How will that compare to Earth/Kin?

It may sound silly, but I'm worried Controllers and Dominators might have too much control and be too easy to play.

I'm liking the idea of either Earth/Rad or Earth/Kin. But I think they may be too controlling for my taste. My finding with controllers and dominators is that fights are usually pre-destine for me to win its just how long will it take and will I use up all my endurance before the fight is over. Both Kin and Rad help with Endurance usage, eventually. So, they may both be too controlling and too easy.

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I second Kheldians.

[/ QUOTE ] Are the blasts going to do knockback. If I solo that's fine, but I find its so annoying to play with Energy Blasters since they are always breaking up groups I've worked so hard to debuff with my Trick Arrow/Dark. I don't want to inflict that on others.

What's wrong with wanting to be able to solo a defender?

The tweak to Vigilence does not need to be damage. But Vigilence is a poor inherent power.

It does nothing solo.

It does nothing if you are doing a good job on a team.

It makes it very hard to plan endurance management since sometimes you have more endurance than you'd possibly need then other times you don't have nearly enough.

Defenders need a tweak, but I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't need to be a damage tweak.

Have Vigilence help when your solo.

Have Vigilence do something if your team is healthy.

Have it help since after Going Rogue everyone will probably just make Corrupters.

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Vigilence needs to be retweaked and I think correctly this thread has stated that soloing is very hard for many (not all) defenders.

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I must admit this particular complaint always leaves me bemused. The AT is advertised from the beginning as a team support AT yet I keep seeing people complain that not all variants can solo well.

I keep getting the impression that what people are thinking but are not quite willing to say is that they want blaster damage and defender abilities. Thats not likely to happen any time soon. In the mean time you can always go and play a corrupter. Soon you'll even be able to bring them hero side.

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Vigilence needs to be retweaked and I think correctly this thread has stated that soloing is very hard for many (not all) defenders.

I think Vigilence could be tweaked to make soloing Defenders more fun. Adjusting it to give both an Endurance Boost and Recharge boost is one of the good ways to make Defenders work better.

To be honest I feel so bad for Forcefields, that I'm not sure it should just have a Build Up in its Primary just so it can have some way to boost damage. Its a powerful primary, but makes for even more difficult to solo because of having no way to self buff damage.

Well, actually I don't expect to be good at everything. Really I'm looking for a challenge. Something that makes me make choices during combat.

Looking for a good male toon for me



Tank

Scrapper

Kheldian

Controller



Is there a better Villain side option? I hear Dominators are getting a makeover.



I don’t need or expect to be good at everything, but I want something that can be a Jack of All and Ace of None.



I want something with some cool controls/debuffs. That’s active to play. That is a healthy solo toon, but that plays a good role on teams. It needs to have a couple of melee attacks early, but not be melee focused. It needs to feel rugged when you play it, meaning it can take at least a couple hits. Soloing means it does enough damage to solo and not feel like you are dragging.



I don’t think I want to do a weapon set. I like my Ice/Dual Blade tanker other than its hard to get into the swords, they are pretty but visually I can’t get into them. The exception to not liking weapons has been my TA/Dark defender which I’ve surprisingly come to really enjoy. But I want something that’s more masculine to play sometimes.



I may want to wait till power customization comes out as it may give me some options to do fun stuff like giving Psychic Melee some more aggressive animations.

For all the bad and good of AE. As a casual player, I love the auto-exemping that happens. It has made team forming and leveling so much easier.

I've been playing like 3 years now and still have a hard time figuring out how to keep my leveling smooth. I mess stuff up when I get too high a level toon in a team. I'm sure its not really complicated, but its not intuitive either and its not something I've ever cared to put much time into.

Auto Exemping takes care of that for me so I don't play for hours getting little or no xp for stuff.

I know Sidekicking and Exemping are in the game, but then you need to have at least half your team at the same level in order to SK or Exemp everyone to the proper level. It also causes problems where one person leaves and then the SK is stuck with no one to prop him up through the rest of the content.

This also is a huge help on servers with smaller populations since it makes it easier to have teams with mixed levels all feeling relevant as they play through the content.

Everything doesn't need to be a powerlevel farm, I personally don't mind that sometimes. But what I do really like about AE is the auto-exemp feature smooths out XP worries and number of SK worries. And all the silly, my SK got just a little too far away and died stuff.

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Talionis, Milady's Knight, and Local Man - those are cool backstories.

However, if I may ask, did you come up with the backstories first, or decide that you wanted to create a Trick Archer of a certain kind and then fit the backstory to it?

I'm not trying to knock this powerset in anyway, just pointing out one of the reasons people may not play it. If anyone comes to the game with a pre-existing character idea that they want to fit into the game as closely as possible, chances are Trick Arrow wont be it.
My first Controller, for example, Anemone, was a superstrong telepathic mermaid from a Freedom Force game mod I made. She ended up being Mind Control/Kinetics because it didn't burst my bubble much to see blue and green waves emanating from her as she gestured every now and then, whereas carrying a bow would have looked out of place.
Same for every other Aquaman/Jean Grey/Magneto/Doc Strange/Jonn Jonn'z wannabe or analogue out there.

Nothing wrong with making a character either way, backstory first or powerset first, but this particular set will be a turn-off to the backstory first crowd.

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I read Luminara's guide. Before that, I'd never thought about Trick Arrow.

I always liked the idea of only Debuffing enemies. Debuff works better for soloing, since its not got any powers built to buff teammates that don't work on me.

Trick Arrow/Dark seemed like a very strong combonation, that I could solo well. It also seemed like it would be a challenge to play, but could significantly help teams, especially with difficult content, and it hasn't disappointed.

I had to come up with a Back Story after the combonation, but I'd say most of my characters are done that way. I've got a whole roster of characters, that don't fit character archetypes, but I've been able to come up with Back Stories for just about any combonation if I think hard enough. And the more I think about them, the more complete they become.

I think it would be nice if propel was a narrow cone. That would make up for the silly activation time. It would make more sense with the cool animation. As is, its a visually awesome power, that I would otherwise probably skip.

For my TA/Dark. The story is that she wasn't good at controlling Dark Magic and summoned a Magical Cursed Rune Bow to fill in the gaps that other Dark/Dark sorceresses could do.

Luminara

I have a level 31 TA/Dark that I'm loving, but I have some questions.

No EMP arrow? I thought this was one of the best holds in the game. I believe its the only source of - regen for TA?

Poison Arrow, am I missing something? I never slotted it, but I never felt like it did much. I had more/better mitigation than I knew what to do with. Solo, I didn't need it. In teams, I didn't really ever feel like the needed the mitigation either.

Moonbeam? Are you still using this for cool IO sets? What set is that cool to waste a power?

Blackstar? I've never been a huge fan of the endurance crash. Yes, we can get it back with Dark Consumption and a blue, but that takes a lot of work to recover from it. Also you aren't running hasten.

Your aren't running hasten? Isn't Hasten nice with TA's weird recharge times? I see from the guide you don't think its really necessary since you have to get used to two sets of timing one with hasten up and one without.

Why did you go from Combat Jumping to Hover? I'm guessing its because Hover can for sure keep things at a distance for your ranged defense to matter?

Thanks you've been a great mentor for me and TA / Dark is my favorite toon.

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TA I have issues with mitigation, at least early game. You can also have trouble getting into teams if you are trying to just get on random teams. Random average player out there = " a defender with no heal? What is that? Me no like"

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And there are also players who actively seek debuffers. Not "healers", not buffers, debuffers. I didn't get Task Force Commander on my TA/Dark by being in a supergroup (never joined one with that character), being invited to teams by forumites (no-one from the forums had ever teamed with my TA/Dark before i acquired TF Commander), or by begging (even if i weren't too terrified of people to send /tells, that wouldn't be my style).

Of course, I'm not being inundated with invitations to Shadow Shard TFs either (or Hess, or the trials...), but I'm just making sure the OP understands that TA is not saddled with the stigma that it used to have. It's not the most popular powerset, but it's not shunned these days and there are intelligent players out there who are aware of the power of debuffs and actively seek them out for their teams.

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I have a trick arrow/dark too currently at thirty and I'd have to say I'm very impressed with the toon. I solo better than I should. I put out a lot of damage for a defender. I improve team damage a lot. I also through out layer after layer of mitigation that just seems to make everyone safer.

I was doing some PUG AE runs while waiting for people to log and with only a tank and blaster and me, full team they were just all lowbies we were moving at a very good clip. No one thought I was that big a help, but about 15 minutes after I left the group PMed me and asked me to come back because they couldn't move through content anymore.

I don't think that people get what Trick Arrows do. But they do make a huge difference. I would say as toons get stronger on their own at higher levels, Trick Arrow because a better and better choice. People just don't need the heals any more.

Dark/Shield Scrapper probably can get the highest self buff to actually put out damage. It can sustain strong attacks over and over. It requires having a lot of minions to buff itself though. Without a team mate it would be a very strong contender.
Other things to think about it who you are trying to damage. Minus Regen isn't technically damage, but it helps kill things faster. I've heard Illusion/Rad controllers can kill things that others just can't dream of because of the minus regeneration.

Kinetic / Archer / Psy -- I love the Kinetics fast recharge of my Nuke. I love Kinetics, but the nuke being so quick returning is the reason I chose archery. I also like Psy because the sleep allows me to setup my buffs in freedom.

Sonic/Energy Melee is my favorite. It has great controls for solo. He can sleep most a crowd with Siren Song. He can stack stuns with power boost and Stun and I think its Shriek. Plus the single target damage output is awesome with the Sonic - resistance and the high damage single damage melee attacks in Energy Melee.

Dark/Stone... He can control things so well. I feel like he holds aggro and with good endurance management he does a great job of what a tank should do, control a fight.

My single target damage is ok.
I have some AoE damage.
I love my Epic Heal.
I think he'll just get better over time as I level him more.

It doesn't bother me. I normally am using my kin powers, then cycle through attacks of Fistfull, Explosive, and Rain of Arrows. Those are the attacks.

Everything works fine for me.

It requires a large investment in Enhancements to make it worth the Endurance it uses as defense. Unslotted it almost looks like it does nothing.

Slotted its melee range mitigation.

The rest of the set doesn't provide enough defense to use to really make it survive the aggro it produces.

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Third, and last for tonight, my TA/Dark, Parthenia. This character isn't level 50 yet, in fact, she's only level 12 (13 before i go to bed, if i finish this soon), but I always plan out my builds well in advance and rarely deviate from the plan unless I see a way to improve it.

This is an interesting project for me. Prior to the results I achieved with Soul Tentacles and Night Fall on Oxybeles, I'd all but given up on /Dark. It just never worked well in my hands before. But playing with ST and NF was so much fun that I wanted to try it again, so here I am, working on leveling up this character.

It took me a bit of thinking to come up with a reasonable character concept that could explain TA/Dark. Then I remembered the myth of Hades and Persephone. Perfect. There were never any stories about them having children, but, hey, it's a myth, nothing says I can't expand on it a little. Thus was Parthenia born, a daughter of ancient Grecian gods, wielding a magical bow and the terrible powers of her father. *queue eerie music*

The build itself is strongly influenced by the character concept. I'm skipping both of the single-target controls in favor of debuffs and a heavier reliance on my secondary's secondary, -ToHit. I'm also, for the first time in the nearly three years that I've been playing, diving into the Presence pool, specifically for the Fear powers. Not only are they incredibly well matched to the concept, but they'll also add to my survivability and give me some great IO set bonuses. I'll be taking Provoke instead of Challenge and trying to get a Perfect Zinger proc to put in it. That'll be useful when I'm soloing for endurance-free damage, and just because it seems like a funny thing to do, taunting a spawn and making some of them so angry that they blow a mental gasket.

One of my major focuses with this build is global Accuracy from IO sets. Why? Well, I just hit 33 months in the middle of June and got access to the Blackwand/Nemesis Staff. Prior to playing Oxybeles, I've never used Sands of Mu or the Ghost-Slaying Axe as a regular attack, just a low level filler to get me through. This time, I've got access to two extra attacks, both of which are thematically appropriate for the character (Sands and Blackwand), so I want to try working them into a regular attack chain. To do that well, I'm going to need quite a bit of extra Accuracy, and some Recharge would be nice. So for Parthenia, I picked IO sets that offered Accuracy bonuses and put a heavier emphasis on +Recharge than I typically do.

And, of course, Torrent. I have an almost unhealthy appreciation for Knockback, and it's a great place to pick up just enough -KB to satisfy me and a nice bit of extra +Recharge.

Again, no travel power. Really, you have no idea how much pleasure I derive from something as simple as just hopping across a zone.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.40
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Parthenia: Level 50 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Trick Arrow
Secondary Power Set: Dark Blast
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Presence
Ancillary Pool: Dark Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Flash Arrow -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb:21(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/Rchg:21(11), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx:21(11), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx:21(15)
Level 1: Dark Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:30(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(3), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:30(3), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:30(9), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(33)
Level 2: Gloom -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:30(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(5), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(5), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:30(9), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:30(33)
Level 4: Glue Arrow -- P'ngTtl-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow:49(A), TmpRdns-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow:49(13), ImpSwft-Dam%:30(46), P'ngTtl--Rchg%:30(46)
Level 6: Hurdle -- Jump-I:45(A), Jump-I:45(7), Jump-I:45(7)
Level 8: Poison Gas Arrow -- FtnHyp-Acc/Sleep/Rchg:50(A), FtnHyp-Acc/Rchg:50(15), FtnHyp-Sleep/Rchg:50(43), FtnHyp-Sleep/EndRdx:50(45), FtnHyp-Plct%:50(45), IComa--Rchg%:16(45)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- Ksmt-ToHit+:16(A)
Level 12: Acid Arrow -- Acc-I:45(A), UndDef-DefDeb/Rchg/EndRdx:49(13), LdyGrey-DefDeb/Rchg/EndRdx:49(50), Achilles-ResDeb%:20(50)
Level 14: Swift -- Run-I:45(A)
Level 16: Tenebrous Tentacles -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg:49(A), AirB'st-Dmg/Rng:49(17), Det'tn-Dmg/Rng:49(17), Posi-Dmg/Rng:49(19), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg:49(19), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:49(21)
Level 18: Disruption Arrow -- RechRdx-I:45(A), RechRdx-I:45(33)
Level 20: Night Fall -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:30(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:30(21), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:30(23), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:30(23), Posi-Dam%:30(25), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg:49(46)
Level 22: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod:30(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc:30(25)
Level 24: Provoke -- Zinger-Dam%:30(A)
Level 26: Oil Slick Arrow -- AirB'st-Dmg/Rchg:49(A), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg:49(27), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:49(27), TmpRdns-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow:30(31), TmpRdns-Dmg/Slow:30(31)
Level 28: Torrent -- KinCrsh-Acc/KB:31(A), KinCrsh-Acc/Dam/KB:31(29), KinCrsh-Rchg/KB:31(29), KinCrsh-EndRdx/KB:31(31), KinCrsh-Dmg/KB:31(42), KinCrsh-Dmg/EndRdx/KB:31(42)
Level 30: Intimidate -- Abys-Acc/Rchg:33(A), Abys-EndRdx/Fear:33(34), Abys-Acc/EndRdx:33(34), Abys-Fear/Rng:33(39), Abys-Acc/Fear/Rchg:33(40)
Level 32: EMP Arrow -- G'Wdw-Acc/Hold/Rchg:49(A), EoCur-Acc/Hold/Rchg:49(34), Para-Acc/Hold/Rchg:30(37), Hold-I:45(40), RechRdx-I:45(43)
Level 35: Life Drain -- Acc-I:45(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg:38(36), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:38(36), Dct'dW-Heal:38(36), Dct'dW-Rchg:38(37), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx:38(37)
Level 38: Invoke Panic -- Abys-Acc/Rchg:41(A), Abys-EndRdx/Fear:41(39), Abys-Acc/EndRdx:41(39), Abys-Fear/Rng:41(40), Abys-Acc/Fear/Rchg:40(42), RechRdx-I:45(43)
Level 41: Oppressive Gloom -- Rope-Acc/Stun:49(A)
Level 44: Dark Embrace -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:25(A)
Level 47: Soul Drain -- AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx:49(A), AdjTgt-EndRdx/Rchg:49(48), AdjTgt-Rchg:49(48), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg:49(48), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg:49(50)
Level 49: Health -- Heal-I:45(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- EndRdx-I:45(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance



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[/ QUOTE ]

How did the TA/Dark experiment go?

I'm thinking up back story and costumes for one now, I may start playing some this weekend...

Did the Prescence Pools actually work for you? How did the tactics of it work? I think you said in another post you'd really enjoyed the synergy and playstyle.

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A simple Axe guide-apalooza!

A Guide to Axe, the Fireman's Friend

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Why isn't this guide on the first page?

Does anyone suggest taking Aid Self? Electric doesn't have a heal. With Stone's Mitigation, I'd think you'd often have time to use it.

I was wondering if team teleport was good for defenders trying to get everyone close enough for an AoE buff?

I was really underwhelmed with the choices. I thought the goal was to port thing from CoV to CoH and CoH to CoV.

Fire/Fire Scrapper the Hero side already has both powersets in tanker.

Dark/Dark Tanker the Hero side already has both powersets in Scrappers.

I'm not saying that Tankers = Scrappers, but I thought the goal was to get stuff in CoH from CoV. I was hoping either would get Electric since that was a Brute only melee set that would've ported well. And while they are exactly the same if I had wanted a Fire/Fire scrapper I could've played a Fire/Fire Tanker and gotten most of the feel. Porting Electric wouldve felt like we were getting something newer and more different.

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Another suggestion? Add some discussion on Strategy. I have gotten lots of positive comments on my guide due to the section I included on the strategy of using the powersets.


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I think Strategy is very important. From all I can tell right now the advise is that your attacks are ok have ok damage and mitigation, but not exactly how to make that mitigation really work for you. If we don't have the most damage, then what makes being an axe wielder better than being SS or Fire? Sell me on something other than the pretty axe. The pretty axe has me wanting to buy, but I need the investment of my time to make sense. I want to know why I'll love playing axe.

It would appear that you should take Whirling Axe purely for mitigation, but from what I've heard it just doesn't work out to be that great. Low damage, High Endurance and fairly slow recharge make this less good than you'd think, but you really can't tell that from the descriptions found else where. I'm glad you made that more clear, but beyond a power by power description, we need to know how they work together to do damage and to do this fabled mitigation.

We need real tactics or playstyles. Things that work well with Axe and make axe fun to play. I'm talking more than DPS attack chains, but line this up and attack with this then that. Or try to get people trapped in a corner then do this....

I think a paragraph or two on Mitigation is important. --- I'm sold on the theme of my character and I want them to have an axe. Now what things are they really good at and how do I need to play my toon to make my toon good at those things too.