TwilightPhoenix

The only things left I can come up with are a few other slotting options using your existing slots. If you're willing to loose a little recharge in the powers, you can two-slot Amplify and Power Build Up with Adjusted Targeting for a 2% damage bonus from each. Loosing the recharge in those may lower your overall DPS, however, so I'm not sure that's the best option.

You can also put two Tempered Readiness into Lingering Radiation for a 1.5% Recovery Bonus. This would be a bit more viable since you're already putting Acc/Slow in there, but you'll loose overall recharge in there too, especially since TR's only recharge comes in a triple. You could also consider Frakenslotting Acc/Rech/End triples into LR. Looking up the IO values, you could pull about 58% for each stat from three slots using the highest level from each set. The recharge would be just a little under two Recharge SOs (66%), but a fair amount under two level 50 generic IOs (84%).

I'm not sure if damage procs will screw up the sleep in Siren's Song. If it doesn't, great, you're fine! If it does? It's either time to find a new proc or use the slot elsewhere.

Beyond that, without looking up everything and putting it all down by hand (did it once to make my own build, very long process) or hijacking someone's Window's comp and using Mid's on it, there's not much more I can add.

Unless you're slotting for set bonuses, I would use a different set in Screech. The damage it does is uber-craptastic since it's main purpose is to stun. Also, unless you absolutely need Weave for the bonuses and tiny additional defense, I'd just grab Temporary Invulnerability for your Resistance toggle, it's superior to Tough in every way except Exemplaring down and would open up two power picks, one of which you could use for Maneuvers or Combat Jumping for the defense.

Though, looking at other picks, I'm assuming soft-capped defenses to a position or S/L? I'm on a Mac, so I can't pop the build open in Mids and see. Though the to-hit debuff in Radiation Infection will indirectly stack with defenses, so hitting a soft-cap isn't so necessary for a Rad/ (except vs. AVs and GMs, which you seem to want to solo, but even they are affected a little). Slotted up, you can floor the to-hit chances of even-con foes. Of course, with Siren's Song, you'll be plenty safe against everything short of a boss, and if you go Mental Mastery you can sleep them too with Sirens then Mass Hypnosis.

Now, while I'm not an expert on Defender AV soloing (won't be surprised if I get corrected by someone on a part of this post somewhere), and if that's your goal, probably a good bit of what I said above may not apply to you (my AV soloist is a Scrapper). However, I'm not sure Force of Nature is a wise pick for an AV fight. When you click it, you're pretty much saying "I'm going to win in the next few minutes or I will die". FoN crashes with your recovery shutting off and you loosing all of your endurance. If that AV is still alive when it crashes, you're probably dead as all of your toggles will shut-off (especially if Hasten crashes right after). If you still insist on it, I'd grab Conserve Power somehow to help with the crash.


If AV soloing isn't a requirement for whatever you come up with, I can share a build I originally made for PvP that also does extremely well solo. While I haven't pressed it's limits, so far only EBs trouble it and it features practically limitless endurance and high survivability. It uses no purples or PvP IOs, so it's not terribly expensive: got most of it for 50ish million (back during I15, adjust for changes in market prices since). It won't, however, solo a GM/AV. The damage is likely there, but it's not a hover-blasting ranged-softcapped build.

"It's just another Nemesis plot."


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In Aion, there wasn't a cooldown on resting. Although, the recovery rate was much slower.

Granted, CoH =/= Aion.

Still, something much shorter would be ideal. Maybe not rechargeless, but maybe a one-minute cooldown? If having it recharge too quickly was an issue, it could just be immune to recharge rate boosts.

Just to add to the above, a lot of players will continue to play Scrappers simply because they can smash face at whatever pace they won't without performance being affected by it. I really do not enjoy the fury mechanic. I want to move at a rate that's comfortable for me and I don't want my performance to be murdered because I had to take a bathroom break.

Scrappers are consistent, Brutes are a roller coaster.

Personally, I hardly play redside right now because I dislike Brute, Stalker, and MM playstyles. Corruptors are rather meh for me. They're damage is lacking for a "high damage" AT and they can't support as well as a Defender can (numerically speaking). Dominators, however, are quite fun and I enjoy the VEATs so far. But really, the main reason why I touch redside so little is because I like blueside ATs more. I still have a lot I want to see and do redside, such as all the Strike Forces.

Currently, only one of my toons will be changing sides completely. One of my Dominators was rolled specifically to go blue per concept reasons. He's supposed to be a hero, but the only AT that fit what I had in mind turned out to be a Dominator (I tried both Blaster and Controller prior, didn't fit). My other villies will probably stay red, some of my heroes will go vigilante, some will stay blue.

True, forgot that it did the full heal. But I also forgot rezzes set your health and endurance to specific percentages. Maybe that could be used here in a fashion?


Also, added some numbers, based on an unslotted level 50 Scrapper. I'm sure they're screwy somewhere, feel free to point them out.

Additionally, I was also hit with the idea that Unstable Reaction might better work as a version of the old Blaster Defiance? Granted, players didn't like it, but maybe it might work better here? On the other hand, I do think giving the player an incentive to keep their health up might be the better idea. Hmmm...

-Max HP? Now why didn't I think of that? That'd fix the issue of simply out-regenning the debuffs on the toggles and still achieve the same general gameplay effect. The resistances would need to be good though so turning them on isn't a deathtrap for the lowbie Scrapper/Brute/Tanker/maybe Stalker (replace the aura with Hide, move it to tier 1 and shift everything else up accordingly).

If you've ever played Metroid Prime 3, you're no doubt familiar with Hypermode. Hypermode basically makes you super-powerful whenever you downright want at the expense of some health. However, whether you use up all your health on it or not, misuse of the ability can lead to your own death.

If you've ever played Super Smash Brothers Brawl, you're probably familiar with Lucario. In Brawl, the damage and launch power of Lucario's attacks is directly related to the amount of damage he's taken (and his current ranking in the match). The worst off he is, the stronger he is. But to achieve maximum power, you have to be in danger of getting sent to your doom in the next hit.

There's also a ton of other examples one could draw up, but we'll leave those on TVTropes (whichever page something like the above and below you'd find this kind of stuff on).

Basically, back playing MP3 I decided it'd be neat to see a Hyper Mode in CoX. I made a tier-9-like armor-set power, but then decided it needed a powerset to go with it. So, I went and made up a Phazon Armor powerset for amusement. I recently dug it up out of my text files and decided that maybe it could exist in-game. So I retooled it to something that wouldn't be a copyright violation, creating Radiation Aura. I picked a nuclear theme because it was the closest I could think of to an unstable armor set, but any other theme could be applied as well.

Anyway, first the power set with more details below it. The power names are whatever I could come up with. I personally think they suck, but I can't think of anything better, sadly. Also, I'm not a numbers guy, so I didn't even try to figure that out. If this ever made it into the game, I'd trust the experts to handle that.

Edit: Made adjustments per comments made. Also threw in some numbers, using existing power sets as reference. Numbers are for level 50 Scrappers, unslotted. I'm sure they're borked in some way.


Electron Shield - Toggle: +Resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Energy), +Protection (Stun, Immobilize), -Health

Self: +25% Resistance S/L/E, +10.5 Stun/Immob Protection, -10% Max HP
Costs .13 end/sec, recharges in 2 seconds

While this power is active, Electron Shield gives you good resistance to Smashing, Lethal, and Energy damage as well as protection against disorient and immobilization effects. However, the shield is unstable and therefore you will be slightly weakened while it is on.


Unstable Reaction - Passive: +Resistance (All, Special), +Damage (All, Special)

Self: 20% Resistance All at one extreme (10% hp or less) and 10% damage buff at the other (90% hp or more). Each 10% HP change would do -1% damage, +2% resistance, assuming you were loosing health

The instability of your powers causes them to change depending on how healthy you are. While your health is high, you will inflict more damage. However, as you loose health, your damage bonus will diminish and will be replaced with resistance to all types of damage. This power is always on and costs no endurance.

(I'm having second thoughts here. Maybe gutting the resistance from this power and instead do scaling damage for lower and lower HP, similar to SR's scaling resistances, may be a better option? Granted, old Blaster Defiance wasn't popular for a reason...)


Proton Shield - Toggle: +Resistance (Fire, Cold, Negative Energy), +Protection (Sleep, Knockback), -Health

Self: +25% Resistance F/C/NE, +10.5 Sleep/KB Protection, -10% Max HP
Costs .13 end/sec, recharges in 2 seconds

While this power is active, Proton Shield gives you good resistance to Fire, Cold, and Negative Energy damage as well as protection against sleep and knockback effects. However, the shield is unstable and therefore you will be slightly weakened while it is on.


Mutagenic Aura - Toggle: Foe: -Resistance, - Defense, + Damage, Taunt

Foe: -10% Resistance All, -10% Defense All, +15% Damage, Mag 3 Taunt for 16 seconds
Costs .208 end/sec, recharges in 10 seconds

While this power is active, you are surrounded by mutagenic radiation. This radiation has a debilitative effect on foes in melee range, making them more susceptible to attacks. However, the mutation will also cause them to grow stronger, increasing the damage of their attacks.


Neutron Shield - Toggle: +Resistance (Toxic, Psi), +Protection (Hold, Confuse), -Health

Self: +25% T/P Resistance, +10.5 Hold/Conf Protection, -10% Max HP
Costs .13 end/sec, recharges in 2 seconds

While this power is active, Neutron Shield gives you good resistance to Psionic and Toxic damage as well as protection against hold and confuse effects. However, the shield is unstable and therefore you will be slightly weakened while it is on.


Meltdown - Click: -Health, + Recovery, + Defense (All)

Self: Deals 25% special, unresistable damage, +10% defense for 60 seconds, .3 Recovery for 60 seconds
Costs 10.4 endurance, recharges in 240 seconds.

You can cause a small internal explosion of energy within your body. While this blast is harmful to yourself and will cause damage, the energy released will temporarily give you a boost to your endurance recovery and will create a small shield that will deflect all attacks.


Nuclear Rearrangement- Click: +Health, +Endurance, -Health, -Endurance, Special

The mutagenic properties of your powers allow you to adjust your molecular structure on the fly, enabling you to exchange your health for endurance and vice versa. Whenever you use this power, you will swap the percentages of your maximum health and endurance.

(For example, if you have 10% health and 70% endurance, using this power will exchange them, giving you 70% health and 10% endurance. If this isn't possible, perhaps it could be based on "tiers of health and endurance" similar to how SR scaling resists operate. For example, if HP is in the 30-20% tier and end in the 70-60% tier when this power is used, then HP would be set to 70% and endurance 30%)


Atomic Reconstruction - Click: Self Rez, +Damage, +Recovery, +Recharge, +To Hit

Self: +30% damage for 90 seconds, +2.5 Recovery for 90 seconds, +60% Recharge for 90 seconds, +20% ToHit for 90 seconds.
Recharges in 360 seconds (longer than most rezzes to account for the recharge bonus)

Should you fall in battle, you can give yourself a boost of atomic energy to rebuild your body and ressurect. The boost is so strong that not only will you be briefly invulnerable and protected from XP debt, but the energy will linger, giving you additional damage, endurance recovery, recharge, and to-hit.


Overdrive - Click: Self +Damage, +Recharge, +To Hit, +Resistance (All), +Defense (All), +Health, +Endurance, -Recovery, Resistance (Endurance, Recovery, Endurance Discount)

Self: Full heal HP and End, +70% Resist All for 90 seconds, +70% Defense All for 90 seconds, +50% Damage 90 seconds, +30% To Hit 90 seconds, +50% Recharge for 90 seconds, 100% Resistance Endurance, Recovery, and Endurance Discount for 90 seconds. After 90 seconds, HP is adjusted to match remaining endurance (or the tier below if direct % matching is impossible).
Costs 2.6 endurance to use, recharges in 330 seconds. Is unaffected by recharge like Strength of Will and One With The Shield.

You can super-charge yourself with energy, making you nearly unstoppable. While Overdrive is active, your damage, recharge, to-hit, resistance to all damage, and defense to all damage will be significantly boosted. Additionally, your health and endurance will be fully restored when activated. However, due to your powers' instability, you also become immune to all endurance, recovery, and endurance discount buffs and your recovery will also shut-off. While Overdrive costs little endurance to activate, you will be left at least incredibly weakened and exhausted from the effects, or may even die. If you are alive, you will be unable to recover health or endurance for a short while.

(There's a reason for the anti-endurance/recovery. When Overdrive crashes, your health will drop to match whatever percentage of endurance you have left. Consequently, if your blue bar is empty, you die. It's an extremely high risk, but Overdrive should be rather powerful to compensate. Plus, you also have a rez anyway. Finally, if direct %s don't work, see note for Nuclear Reconstruction for an alternative.)


Unslotted totals for a level 50 Scrapper, ignoring the Tier 9, and self-rez effects.

25% Resistance to all (45% at 10% HP, 35% at 50% HP)
-30% Max Health
.598 end cost/sec
10% Defense to all (with Meltdown up)
3 end recovery/sec (with Meltdown up)
10% Damage at 100% Hp, 5% at 50% HP


With Atomic Reconstruction (90 seconds)

25% Resistance to all (45% at 10% HP, 35% at 50% HP)
-30% Max Health
.598 end cost/sec
10% Defense to all (with Meltdown up)
5.5 end recovery/sec (with Meltdown up)
40% Damage at 100% HP, 35% at 50% HP, 30% at 10% HP
60% Recharge
20% To Hit


With Overdrive (90 seconds and then crashes)

95% Resistance to all (115% at 10% HP, 105% at 50% HP)
100% Resistance to Endurance, Endurance Discount, and Recovery
-30% Max Health
.598 end cost/sec
80% Defense to all (with Meltdown up)
0 end recovery/sec (even with Meltdown up)
60% Damage at 100% HP, 55% at 50% HP, 50% at 10% HP
30% To Hit
50% Recharge

With Atomic Reconstruction and Overdrive (Probably be really rare, but yikes! 90 seconds still anyway)

95% Resistance to all (115% at 10% HP, 105% at 50% HP)
100% Resistance to Endurance, Endurance Discount, and Recovery
-30% Max Health
.598 end cost/sec
80% Defense to all (with Meltdown up)
0 end recovery/sec (even with Meltdown up)
100% Damage at 100% HP, 95% at 50% HP, 90% at 10% HP
110% Recharge
50% To Hit


Yes, the set does sound really powerful. Resistance to all attacks with no holes? Defense on top of it? OVERPOWERED! Right? No! This set puts your health directly at risk. To run your shields, your health goes down. Some other powers cause you damage to use or make you take more. Even with all your safety, to be at your best, you're hurting yourself. The power is strong, but it comes with a cost.

First, the player is more or less forced to take all three armors by splitting up the resistances and mez protection among them. The three common mezzes: sleep, stun, and hold, are each on a different armor. Want complete protection? Gotta take them and run them. The three powers all reduce the player's maximum health, making them a bit squishier. A player can sacrifice mez protection and resistance by not running one or more toggles at any given moment to keep their health higher. Choosing which toggles to run may very well be a requirement to playing the set well.
Of course, accolades and IO slotting can help offset this weakness. However, I'm not aware of any weakness IOs can't offset.

Second, health is a resource in this set. The three toggle shields all reduce health in exchange for protection. Meltdown hurts you to give you a very strong boost. Mutagenic Aura makes your enemies easier to kill, but they hit you harder. Overdrive can kill you if you abuse it.

Third, since health is affected by the main powers, I figured, why not have some other powers play with it? Unstable Reaction gives you more damage while the green bar is good, but makes you tougher when you're weak (though it may be more interesting if this was reversed, hmm). Nuclear Rearrangement lets you use your health to refill endurance, or vice versa, making it a very tactical power. And, of course, since you're sure to kill yourself at least once with the powers, and death is the ultimate risk, might as well give a rez with a big reward for using it attached.

Fourth, the set eases you into it's risks a bit. You only start off with a small reduction of health that shouldn't make a big difference early on. As you progress that chunk from armor gets bigger and bigger and you can choose to loose a bigger chunk too, but you can benefit from it. Enemies can start hitting you harder, but you are much more easily able to kill them before they hit you too much. You can burn some HP to make yourself stronger. And finally, you can become virtually unstoppable for a minute or two at the risk of killing yourself at the end.

The whole concept here is that this set is risky to use because it makes you a threat to yourself. Consequently, it's quite strong. Not everyone will like it, I'm sure. CoX already offers plenty of much safer to use sets (aka all of the ones in game). I think it'd be quite nice for players looking to raise the stakes and reap benefits from them. Not all teams would appreciate the crazy, nuclear powered Scrapper on their team, but then again not all teams appreciate any currently existing powerset anyway.

And now to step back and let people rip the set apart. After all, I hardly doubt it's perfect. My biggest worry is that the engine can't handle some of the powers, like the health/end swapping.

As little sense as it'd make, I'd be all for making the Oil Slick a robotic entity so TA has an internal, if highly infrequent, way of lighting OSA via EMP.

I'm not finished slotting my BS/SR Scrapper, so this is most likely not the best attack chain (and I'm not sure it's the best for my level of recharge). But, I'm currently running Headsplitter (110%), Disembowel (95%), Slash (97%), Hack (95%), Slash. This includes my current Global Recharge (roughly 50%, will be higher whenever I finish the build) but no Hasten, which I don't have room for unless I snag a 3% Def PvP IO, which won't be happening anytime soon, if ever. I'm suspecting that, if I don't find a better chain, I'll be able to drop a Slash from my attack chain once I get my recharge higher.

Not near the best attack chain, I know, but it's enough to solo at least some AVs.

Some time back I wrote a Broadsword/Super Reflexes guide. However, my account expired before I finished, so I could ask for some feedback here. I've revised it since then and decided to ask for some feedback from any of you expert Scrappers willing to read it over. If you want to help be warned: the guide is LONG. I have a tendency to be really detailed.

All feedback is welcome, good or bad. Detailed feedback is encouraged, but I'll settle for a "good job" or "it sucks" if that's all you want to give.

Linky: http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos...e/536558/56616

Yeah, it's on GameFAQs, not here. I put all my guides there (although none of them are CoH guides)

Give 'em a suit of powered armor that utilizes x as its source of attack/protection/whatever, where x is equal to the powersets' elements you are using, and you have made a tech-themed toon. Of course, using the same concept repeatedly would get old...

Aliens also work. Want an Energy Blast Corruptor? Make an alien who can naturally manipulate energy. Though that may or may not be up your alley.

On second thought, I could get behind this suggestion or Dispari's if it meant my Grav/TA could ditch Entangling Arrow. I could manipulate things one way or another so I could get Crush, Flash Arrow, or Poison Gas Arrow instead. Or maybe Dimension Shift if I felt like annoying teams.

My own BS/SR Scrapper has about 30 hp/sec. Combined with being at the soft-cap and having just under 1.9k hp, I can ignore pretty much any hit that does manage to land that doesn't take him below 1/2 health, because odds are I'll regenerate it back before I'm hit again. And if not, then there's Aid Self and SR's scaling resistances.

My Rad/Sonic Defender, PvP/solo specced, pulls about 20 hp/sec at about 1.4k health. However, I didn't aim for regeneration bonuses on her, I just happened to get it.

I assume those values are at least decent for both toons. Of course, more regen never hurts.

While there's a lot of issues with PvP in this game, I think one of the problems is finding it. Nobody PvPs because nobody can find it. This would actually be one of the easier parts to fix, standard code rant still applying, and could help things a little bit. Basically, a few QoL features could make finding a fellow player to beat up much easier.


1. For preset arena matches, aka the ones that are always listed but are universally ignored, change the minimum player requirement to two. It's silly, especially on low population servers, for it to not run every hour if there's people signed up. When you're bored and sign up for one of these, it's kind of annoying that, even though there's 6 others signed up, it'll never start because it demands 8.

2. An extension of this, keep the ASAP matches to 8 player minimum for an ASAP start, but if they're short, start them on every hour regardless of number as long as there's at least 2.

3. If a player logs off for a bit, unregister them for all events in the arena they signed up for. I clicked into a Battle Royal with 7 other people. When the match started, nobody spoke or replied when I said hi. Got into the match, nobody entered the map except me. Turns out, all seven of them were offline. They should not have still been signed up for the match.

4a. In PvP zones, allow /whoall to cut through /hide. That way someone seeking PvP can see everyone in the zone, hidden or not, and it'll eliminate the need to waste 20 minutes running around looking for someone who might be active but on /hide.

4b. Alternatively, add a / command that says how many enemy players are in the zone, regardless if they're hiding or not. This may be more ideal than 4a, since people can be hidden where ever but you can still tell when there's enemy players in a zone. Though it may take a little more work... or it may not, I don't know.

5. Whenever a player does something in a PvP zone in regards to the zone's mini-game, announce it. Doesn't need to be specific, just something like "A hero has taken a meteor sample" or "A villain has launched the rocket". PvP zones have awesome rewards for ridiculously little risk. This makes it harder for players to engage in these mini-games undetected, upping the risk. You know, kind of what Recluse's Victory does.

6. Probably the least likely to be added, but a transporter of some sort in PvP zones specifically for hopping between them would be nice. Ideally one in each base. This would be nice for those wanting to check each zone for possible foes, especially with either suggestion 4 in place.

7. Adjust Recluse's Victory so that players who capture all the Pillboxes can get the summonable mech. Right now, to get it, you either need to swap kills/pillboxes (not intended, most common) or actually have a big fight for them with ownership trading enough to get the points (intended, never happens). Plus, if they were easier to get, PvErs may be lured in to try to get them, which in turn might attract PvPers to hunt and fight them, putting the needed risk in place. Afterall, unlike the other zones, RV announces which Pillbox you just captured.

7a. If Pillbox captures alone is TOO easy, perhaps throw in a requirement to bring down the reinforcement AVs? That's no easy feat, especially with the screwy interaction of PvE/PvP rules.

As a power combination, my vote would be a Rad/Sonic Defender. However, it will not handle all of the above on any given build at the highest level. It can solo easily on most builds. It can be built to make sure nobody ever dies, period. It can be built to take down AVs/GMs. It can be made into a decent PvPer (mine gets quite a few wins for being a gimped PvP AT). It can make an ok farmer (lacking a bit in strong AOEs that don't kill your end).

But note, you're not going to find a build that owns PvE totally that'll own PvP totally, or vice versa. This is simply because of the mechanics for both are a bit different and require building for different things.

But the most important thing that can be said: a heavily IOed anything will be very strong.

While we're at this, I noticed in another topic Physical Perfection makes the recovery procs stronger. I can't log in anymore during reactivation weekend, so it's going to be a long time before I can hop on test with a respec and play around with it, so I have to ask. Could that be strong enough to skip Health And Stamina without my regen and endurance taking a big hit (I'll also have CP in that case) or even coming out ahead? Being able to drop Fitness would open three power choices and a power pool, letting me grab Hasten. But, it could also gimp me hard...

Ugh, I really wish I could connect to CoH from my dorm, so I could justify the monthly fee and toy around with it all...