Unthing

I can join with Hibernal Flea, my level 15 Ice/SS. He has no useful powers or skills for this trial other than being able to click a clickie when told to*.

* I think, it's never been tested.

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I put the SG colours back to red and yellow and the emblem back to the fist....
Who's been the maniac that put the SG colours to shocking pink and black and made an heart our emblem?! o.0'

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I was wondering that. The only hero I know who has a heart as an emblem is Mr. Cuddles......

If it was me I would have changed them all to Gold! With a shiny Aura as the symbol. Fortunately for you all this isn't the case, although I did once go into the base when drunk and put a huge stone head in one of the rooms.

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Tanking is about playstyle. You may be a good tank, but most stoners aren't.

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That should probably read "most tanks aren't" going by most talk I've heard in game recently.

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Very true.

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come see me in action and i'll show you an aggro magnet, it all depends on the one playing the stonetank, not the tank itself

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Tanking is about playstyle. You may be a good tank, but most stoners aren't.

Note as pointed out to me below, I shouldn't really be picking on stoners... most tanks of all types aren't good tanks, at the moment. However they [censored] me off most because they are the nearest this game has to invulnerable. Personally I blame the fact that no one is tough until SOs rather than DOs as it used to be and the secondary can now be better for survival than the primary in many cases.

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Never liked stoneys when im playing skwishies. Just dont trust them to grab the aggro.
Statements like "Im always the last one standing" do not inspire confidence like "Im always the first one to fall!"

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I agree with that, I don't rate stoners. They are the toughest but not the best aggro magnets.

Read this thread from the US boards, it is a tanker relating his experiences from level 1 to the mid twenties

He seems to have come to the conclusion that tanking is pointless now. This is strange, it is sounding moderately familiar as I am currently levelling a Ice/SS tank and have reached level 15...

Any comments?

Gratz!

Shame you couldn't hit 50 on your birthday!

Luckily I managed to avoid the Speedos of Life.

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I've switched out of SG mode as the lower level tanks need influence for their SOs, I've given out a few mil so far and found that I can easily earn 1 mil inf in an evening doing a few missions.

If people need inf then send me a tell in game and we can do a few missions to earn some inf and prestige. I tend to be on as Halo unless I'm testing new builds and tactics on Pyrius.

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This seems to be the best way of using level 50s, they are never going to be Prestige Kings but they certainly earn influence as a HUGE rate. I got about 1.5 million from 3 missions on the Stateman arc. Currently he is subsidising alts but I have no qualms about using it to gain prestige. I'm hoping the next generation of 50s have the 650k Prestige that Blapper managed to generate for the Rangers.

Also I've decided that the best way of surviving and enjoying horrible pickup teams is by being a tanker and tanking well.

The art of tanking is not dead, it is just mostly forgotten.

I thought I would revive this thread as there have been quite a few people request invites to the 1 AT Coalition tank supergroup.

Whilst we have a good dose of level 50s we really are doing badly for Prestige. Currently my tank Golden Golem is in the lead with about 154k Prestige. So here is a plea for more tanks to earn Prestige, Golden Golem is willing to help out on the influence side for those of you in need in exchange for earning Prestige.

Also Rock Eagle is doing a purge. Any tanks who haven't been on for 40 days are likely to be kicked, this is to clear room. You are welcome back when you start playing again.

For invites the best candidates are
Rock Eagle
Golden Golem ( @Unthing )
J Brute

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And its going to be a complete aggro magnet. Might consider whether ice/fire needs taunt (as it seems to me ice best primary and fire best secondary for grabbing aggro).

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I thought I could get away without Taunt pre 20. I couldn't and got it at level 12 after doing some Hollows pickup teams ( with mainly sensible players too ). You will have no problem keeping aggro locally most of the time with just Chilling Embrace and Combustion however that is not what taunt is for, it's for keeping aggro in 2 places and pulling.

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My one concern is it going to be tough enough? hopefully i7 and scaling defence will kick in by the time i need it...

[/ QUOTE ] Don't know, I haven't got an Ice tank very high, however I hear the Medicine pool is your best defence for the self sufficent tank, although any defender/controller with an occasional heal on you would be just as good. I haven't decided what I am getting for my last power pool to bolster defences, it is either Fighting ( Boxing, Tough, Weave ), Leadership ( Maneuvers ) or Medicine ( for Aid Self ).

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It should make for a good PBAoE Scranker build - lots of damage from Fire secondary. Ice is a nice primary that's underappreciated. I wouldn't go Ice/Fire myself as I'd miss the control effects the other secondaries offer - but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work for you.

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Having done Inv/Fire for 50 levels I would say that Ice/Fire is not only a scranker build but is a truly viable tanker build. If you concentrate on AoEs and leave off the single target attacks until later you can fill up with enough defensive powers to allow yourself to tank with the best of them. Ironically one of your defensive weaknesses is fire, the same as my Inv/Fire who never got Resist Elements.

Ice is considered a gimped set, because in I3 and I4 it was [considered] sub-par to the other tanker set, Stone has Granite, Inv could almost cap all non-psi resists and had uber defence, fire has good resists but had a herders dream power in Burn.

So despite Ice now being very similar in survivability to Inv few people actually pick it. Ice performs best when collecting enemies together in a big bunch, as that's when it's best Aura, Chilling Embrace, protects best. Also Energy Absorbtion give defence per enemy in melee range.

Fire is the most damaging secondary because it has 2 solid AoEs and a reasonable single target attack chain. This makes it a good fit for Ice, as Fire benefits from having many enemies in melee range as you can damage them all at once.

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IMO tanks should be judged not entirely on their ability to be indestructable, but on keeping aggro away from skwishies.

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Very true. Being indestructible is pretty pointless unless you can use it to prevent the rest of the team taking damage.
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Would you team with a perma-granite tank without taunt?

[/ QUOTE ]I would team with him/her/it but then get horriblyfrustrated when I realise he/she/it is failing to fulfil their job.

In fact the lack of decent tanks led me to be give up on 2 defenders, both of which are perfectly capable of keeping a tank alive in dangerous circumstances, but almost none of the tanks in question were able to keep them alive in normal circumstances.

Generally I've found Granite make poor tanks on the whole, they don't seem to be able ( or be inclined ) to hold aggro.

The few Ice tanks I've seen tend to be better.

So I guess that's me back to tanking.....

Speed Boost gives the equivalent of :

End recovery > fully slotted stamina.
Recharge improvement ~= 2/3rds of Hasten
Speed approaching superspeed.

Slot with 1 end mod. IMO It doesn't need any extra slots. If someone is still having endurance problems when speed boosted they are probably doing something wrong.

Gratz to Blapper!

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you do realise most stalkers out there dont realise what an anchor is and they think debuffs are some attack power.

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It seems in pve that most players dont know what an anchor is as well

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They 'know' it's a sign saying "Hit Me!"

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Oops, might have expressed myself wrong in there, i meant : when you die so your team can escape if need be

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Often I've found when tanking and the team is failing I would say run and hold them off. Tanks have lots of hitpoints and lose them slowly, so if you are in over your head you know and have lots of time to warn the team and then get out of Dodge. Of course if the team ignores your request to run, then there is a good chance you will have a team wipe.

Tankers are tough and from what I've heard need less support than their counterparts in other MMO games.

The irritating thing is I can see that bosses NEED that extra endurance. I've seen certain bosses run out of endurance in medium length fights when they aren't being sapped.

However because endurance is a binary thing, either you are drained or you aren't it becomes a pointless secondary effect unless you can drain everything. Unlike players, enemies tend not to use toggles, so the major advantage sapping enemies have over players was never really there for players versus enemies.

Other defensive secondary effects, -acc, -recharge, -dam, knockback, disorient, slow work in small amounts, but endurance has to drain it all or it is pointless.

The more offensive secondary effects -res, -def, dot help defeat the enemy quicker.

If they made it so the amount of endurance drianed was a proportion of the total, that would offset this, but would probably make electrical blast and transference too good against AVs.

Also IIRC the damage from Short Circuit is about the same as Ball Lightning, which is comparable to many other powers in other blaster sets. The main problem is that the best attack chain power Elec blast has is Lightning Bolt. All other blaster sets have a third single target blast that is higher damage than the tier 2 attack. All elec get is 2 poor-moderate damage large area AoEs, a hold and Voltaic Sentinel.

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I was the one that dubbed it "Full Aggro". However I will join syn in the slaping if you don't take it. Flamethower then FA is still a good damaging combo. It just doesn't make sure everything goes down any more. Anything that doesn't go down will dance on your face if no one is holding the aggro. I may knock AR alot but one thing it has over any other blaster primary is a level 32 power you can use in a standard attack chain.

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ahem - Rain of Arrows ....

Posted in the blaster forum ....

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http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#4814014


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In this thread it says this is on the US training room:
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Lieutenants now have 140 endurance. Bosses now have 200. Both previously, since release, have had 100. Base blaster short circuit endurance drain is 35 endurance to an even con, subject to scaling per level as damage is.


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[over-reaction]
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Now Kin/Elec is dead!
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Transference ( base 60 ) can't now drain a higher level Boss without the help of more than one Short Circuit ( don't know what the defender base is, probably 35 ). So the only thing going for the elec secondary is now Tesla Cage...

Unfortunately this really does mess up my Kin/Elec Sapper build quite seriously ( which was not that effective since ED anyway ).

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I'm not sure about that one. When I play as a kin I am in front of the ( more sensible ) squishies and behind the tank,

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behind the tank? squishies behind the tank too? omg no! tank could jump behind the mob and turn around so all cones are in his/her direction only. I'm sure u can cusp the aura across the mob to reach the tank and having the team fighting within the aura yourside of the mob too. When it comes to the likes of jaegers i like defenders to shoot in aura shoot out.

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Behind the tank from my point of view. Yes, ideally the tank should be facing me with enemies in front of him. Also the Kinetic aura is centred around an enemy so the tank ALWAYS gets hit and I can heal them safely, however I sometimes want the healing and the end so I place myself at risk quite a lot. Similarly I would place myslef so that the most people get Fulcrum Shift. For Nemesis I would probably heal from afar.

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Actually, while I'm at it - part of my raging altoholism is produced by a desire to see how the other half lives. So, blasters, what powersets are good for producing a blaster who actually does their thing at range?

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Anything with Devices secondary... With no decent melee moves you stay back at range.

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... The other thing about Kinetics is that letting the occasional unaggroed minion leak towards the squishies isn't an altogether awful thing.

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I'm not sure about that one. When I play as a kin I am in front of the ( more sensible ) squishies and behind the tank, this hopefully means I have myself in my Heal Aura and ( more importantly ) my End Aura. Anyone getting damaged who isn't in the heal zone is a pain to heal because I can't see them so it requires me to hope that his target is close to him or find him and click a nearby enemy. Also a loose minion quickly becomes prime target for the teams energy blaster ( most teams have one ) who promptly fires him out of range of the heal.

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I'd say an Empath was good support for a kinetic-heavy team, as the heals and end replenisment could hit Blasters, and non-meleers.

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The melee half of the team is already covered with a good healing blanket, end is not an issue as the kins can provide 2xspeed boost, so the only thing left for an emp to do is heals for the ranged people and the buffs of Fortitude, AB and Regen Aura. Not much for an empath to do IMO.

Sonic : Debuff + resitance, very complimentary with Kinetics as -res and +dam do the same thing in different way to give uber damage. The big shield also provides mez protection.

Empathy : Heal + Buff. Both are done reasonably well be Kinetics so they is quite a bit of overlap. The main advantage is that the Heals from empathy are targettable and you have nice powers like Fortitude.

FF : Bubbles + Knockback. Shields provide + status protection compliment Kinetics. Knockback doesn't.

Rad : Toggle debuffs can keep the kins safe. Generally a good choice. Provides a nice buff in AM.

Dark : Various debuffs + mez effects make this a good choice too. Adds resistance and stealth too.

Storm : Various debuffs + Knockback. Knockback doesn't mesh too well with Kinetics. Adds resistance and stealth too.

So IMO the ones that are best for a team with 2 kinetics would be Sonic, Rad and Dark.