Twilight_Snow

The OP is technically correct, because damage mitigation should be the amount of damage being avoided, either resisted or dodged by defense. So, adding 3% defense has more bang for the buck for the 35%-defense SR scrapper than a 0%-defense blaster should be rephrased using a different language, rather than explaining in terms of damage mitigation.

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Actually, theres a really easy way to calculate the increase in suvivability for straight resistance/defense calculations:
HP * (100% + Total Dmg Mit%)
Or, a tank with 2000 HP and 90% dmg mitigation can actually absorb about 3800 dmg.


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Damage mitigation is the percentage of damage that you resisted or dodged, so if you want to find the amount of damage that the tank can absorb, you should multiply the damage mitigation percentage to the amount of incoming damage, not multiplying to his hit point.

I think what you said is right. But on the other hand, what I really care is whether I live or not. While the damage that I avoided, which you called damage mitigation, is nice to know, what really matters is "survivability".

Thanks for the data!

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Weakness #4
I didn't list the least common by AT, just the least common in general. Because of the #2 problem, I couldn't determine the least common powerset combos for three ATs. This led to my decision to just go with the overall numbers.


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hm....if it's not a lot of hassle, I would like the lists for the least common by AT, except for the 3 ATs.

A lot of the tricks can be easily used in small teams. In small teams, it's good to be a swiss knife performing multiple roles. For FF defenders, we can provide defense and controls.

For big teams, the team members can be more specialized. My rule is that If there are already somebody who can take care of controls, I'll leave the job to that person, rather than asking the rest of the team to work with my controls. In this case, I'll just bubble and blast, and some occasional kb when appropriate. The bubbles are only a small part of FF, but if this is the appropriate amount of contribution that I should give to a team, I won't say I'm not making good use of my FF powers.

Actually, some of the heaviest ranged blaster attacks are like 20 yards, for example blaze, power burst and shout. Technically, they are ranged, but practically, they are only 1 step away from melee. By and large, I agree with you that blasters should be ranged. But some unfortunate blasters can never fire off their heavy ranged attack if they are always at the back of the team.

I think blasters can go melee as well. They just need to know when to back off, and when to stop using their heavy attacks all together. For short-ranged blasters, mobility is important. Moving in to fire the 20 yard blast, and maybe blap once or twice, and then back off. For situations like an AV/monster that likes to aoe, it's better just to stand at the back.

I'm glad that you mentioned blasters have quite a few tricks up in their sleeves in the second section. However, you put it in the context that the tricks are meant to "keep enemies away from you or kill them quickly when they get too close". I already made my comments concerning melee attacks above. There are quite a few control powers in the blaster sets. Some of them are indeed situational and probably intended to be used when mobs are getting too close. But some control powers are pretty handy and blasters can sometimes help in controlling for the team as well.

Another thing that I noticed is that when you introduce the scrappers, you said that they win by "destroying the enemy one by one quickly". I think this is true. In my opinion, blasters excel in destroying a whole group quickly. Although you said blasters are all about damage, I afraid blasters might lose, for example, in damage when killing a boss compared to a scrapper. This is just my opinion about blasters' role in a team.

The above are just my comments about your post. My comments do not mean that you're wrong though. In fact, I agree with what you said in a general setting.

If you have problems with the vines respawning faster than you can kill, I encountered similar problem as well. It's a team of 4 people, and there are 30 vines to kill. For safe vine killing, kill those at the back of the tree(in the northern part of the map). However, those at the back are usually not enough. One way to do it is to ask a mastermind to send pets to kill those in front of the tree while the others work on those at the back.

I also heard that the vine's health don't regen, maybe another tactic is to beat the vines but not killing them, and then kill them all real quick.

Hope that it helps!

Yeah, probably a bad idea to stand behind a tank, so many AoE not only from Nemesis. The guide does mention about positioning, and I think "mid-field" is a pretty good idea. If the build allows it, stealthy mid-field is even better.

Thank you for the guide.

I don't know if I miss it or not, coz the guide is pretty long. A good incentive to pick the leadership pool is the resist to taunt/placate/confuse/fear and +perception from assault and tactics. Probably useful in pvp, I'm not sure if these effects are popular in CoH. I'm mostly in CoV these days. In CoH, if there are succubus from CoT, you'll probably see some of these annoying effects.

For empath, I would suggest keeping hover instead of AS if you pick the flight pool, just for the knockdown protection. And as you mentioned, it's also great for flying over caltrops and earthquakes. My only complaint is that its speed is not quite good even 3-slotted with flight speed. Maybe you can use fly during combat, but I think it's quite draining.

How-to-invite guide

Recruiting to form a pick-up team has always been frustrating in the game to both team leaders and the people being invited. Blind invites have been widely discussed in the forum. And no one like to be team leader, people tossing the star around. This guide is written from a perspective of a person being invited. Hopefully, this will make recruiting and pick-up teams less frustrating in general.

Some facts:

Before going to details how to invite, it is good to know the following fact. Any time of the day, if you search for people looking for team, you will only get a few for the whole server. And among these people, those with a level similar to you will be even less. No wonder why team leaders will have to recruit the people who don't put a tag up looking for team. Given the high turn-down rate, it is also no surprise that team leaders will like to randomly shoot out invites and see who join afterwards. But still, it is a good idea to invite sensibly such that the team will work and people will stick with the team longer, which saves you time actually.

Background knowledge:

It is necessary to have some background knowledge of the game in general. To form a team, you will need to have a rough idea of what different archetypes can do. For example, if the team is heavy on damage, and you want to find some players to provide support, you need to search for the right archetype. The following list provides a rough idea of what archetypes can do.

Tanker: Meatshield, damage
Scrapper: damage
Blaster: damage
Defender: support, damage
Controller: control, support
Peacebringer: damage
Warshade: damage
Brute: damage
Stalker: damage
Dominator: damage, control
Mastermind: pet, support
Corruptor: damage, support

Obviously, this is very rough, but it suffices for the purpose of recruiting. A word is needed to what is meant by support here. Support means buffs, debuffs, healing and some minor control. It is not necessary to insist on finding a healer. Any means of support are created equal, and they supplement each other, no one is better than the others.

If you are forming a team to do a TF/SF or trial, you need to know at least the level range of it. It is a common question when you are recruiting for TF/SF/trials, because if a person is not within the level range, he is either not allowed to do it or he will be exemplared/malefactored. Other common questions include the length of the TF/SF/trial and what mobs will appear. It will be great if you can prepare for these questions before starting. I compiled a list below showing the level range of TF/SF/trials.

TF/SF and trial list:

Heroes:
10 - 15 Positron
15 - 20 Synapse
20 - 25 Sister Psyche
23 - 28 Moonfire
25 - 30 Ernesto Hess
25 - 31 Citadel
30 - 34 Katie Hannon
30 - 35 Manticore
35 - 38 Numina
40 - 44 Dr. Quaterfield
40 - 50 Sara Moore
44 - 50 Justin Augustine
44 - 50 Faathim the Kind
12 - 15 The Cavern of Transcendence
24 - 33 1st respec
34 - 43 2nd respec
38 - 40 Abandoned Sewers Trial
39 - 41 Eden trial
44 - 50 3rd respec

Villains:
15 - 20 Virgil Tarikoss
20 - 25 Silver Mantis
25 - 30 Strike Force Leader Renault
25 - 30 1st Respec
30 - 40 2nd Respec
35 - 40 Ice Minstral

How to search:

To search for people, if you simply click the search button in the search window, you will mostly likely get a long list which is truncated. A more efficient way is to specify the level range as well as a specific archetype. You can search each archetype one by one, then you will get a very manageable list. In the search result, you can find out whether they are looking for team or not, what levels they are, their locations and their search comments. If they are in a team, they are greyed out, otherwise they are bright blue in color.

It is up to you who you want to invite. In general, take a glance at their comments and try to recruit people close to your level. It is ok to recruit people much lower than you if sk/lk is available, but people too low has few powers and the powers are not well slotted yet. Also, no need to waste time on people who are greyed out, it is hard to lure people out of their original team. But you can give the solo-ers in mission map a try, in particular those who also have their looking-for-team tag up. They probably do some missions while waiting for team at the same time.

How to ask:

Before going to how to ask, it is necessary to understand why people don't like blind invites. One reason is that people don't want to join a team and find out that they are going to get very low xp, and have to say that the team is too low. So, people will like to know beforehand what kind of team they will be joining. Secondly, if people are fighting some mobs, a sudden pop-up of the invite window is annoying.

A very common way that team leaders use to invite is just to send a tell saying "want to team?" or variations of it. In fact, this is as blind as inviting through the invite pop-up window, because people still don't know what kind of team it is, what level the team is.

If you are doing mission, the best way is to tell people your level or the team level if the team does not have a wide spread in level. It is ok to use mission level but it can be misleading. For example, people like to set their mission to invincible/relentless, the mobs are like +2/+3 to the whole team, and then you are recruiting a person +3 to whole team using the mission level. The person will find out the rest of the team is at least -2/-3 with respect to him. Not to say there are always leechers who are like -5 and refuse to be sk/lk. So xp-wise, the person may be better off solo-ing white mobs himself rather than having a bunch of people not contributing much but sharing the xp. Some people are fine with this, but in general, they will not stick with the team for long. There is in general a tendency to rephrase the question such that it looks good to a high level. Keep your invitation simple and straight forward, like "want to join mission, level of team is 30" for example. If people like to join, they will join and stick with the team longer, saving you time and less frustration later.

If you are doing TF/SF/trials, make sure that you know the level range. For respec trials, the level range is big. If you want a person to be exemplared/malefactored, you should inform the person when asking.

I joined a costumes contest before. After the finalists were chosen, the host of the contest asked the others to f... off.