Unthing

Not having to slot for accuracy is good. It means I only have to use 3 slots rather than 4, which means more slots for other powers. However it could be argued that any rad build could do this given the def debuff on RI.

I'm quite liking this character, I suspect that is more to do with the primary than the secondary, but I am waiting for my next power, Flaming arrow which does more damage than a snipe according to Sherksilver's Hero builder and most of that is fire damage.

Most hero planners have an export function.

I would get Plasma Shield ASAP, it protects you from holds and sleeps as well as energy damage.

Slot your shields with 3 damage resistance adn possibly an end reduction. Put 3 or 4 slots in them.

Super Jump and Combat Jumping don't need extra slots.

6 slot healing flames as soon as is feasible, in later levels you want a mix of healing and recharge, early on healing is probably good enough. Don't bother slotting it for damage resistance.

If you use Blazing Aura, slot it for end reduction.

When you get Stamina, put 2 additional slots in it ASAP.

I guess if you want to be a tanker that focuses on offensive you want a primary that demands a minimum number of powers. I assume that all are going for fitness pool and a travel power + prerequisite.

Must have earlyish primary powers for defensive purposes, I put more optional powers in brackets. I'm not including Auras unless they provide significant defensive bonuses.

Firey Aura 3(4): Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, Healing flames,(Acrobatics from Leaping).
Invulnerabilty 4(6): (RPD), Temp Inv, Unyielding, Dull Pain, Invincibility, (Tough Hide) .
Ice 5(6): Frozen Armour, Hoar Frost, Chilling Embrace, Wet Ice, Glacial Armour, (Energy Absorbtion)
Stone 4(6): Rock Armour, Stone Skin, Earth's Embrace, Rooted, (Brimstone Armour), (Crystal Armour)

So of the 4 I'd probably go for Firey Aura too. With 3 powers you get pretty much all of the protection from the primary, you are missing immob and knockback protection which can be obtained from Cambat Jumping and Acrobatics from the leaping pool. It is also very cheap endurance wise unless running Blazing Aura. Fire also has an endurance regaining power in consume and 2 damage dealing powers, Fiery Embrace and Burn.

The next best is probably invulnerability, however 2 of its 3 toggles are more expensive than Fire ( Temp Invulnerability and Unyielding ). Also Dull Pain is a less useful heal than Healing Flames, especially in the early levels.

Personally I don't like the offensive tanker idea, it has some flaws which are mainly to do with 2 things:-
1. Tanker damage isn't that great until the big attacks at high levels ( Knockout Blow, Cleave, Greater Fire Sword, etc ), normally 35 and 38.
2. People have the expectation that you will be keeping them safe, that's generally why they invite a tanker rather than a scrapper.

However if you take these 2 things into consideration it might be worth a try.

PvE you should be fine though.

Just thought I'd give to hit chances for fortified people. This assumes they have slotted one ACC in their powers and the powers are 75% base to hit ( true for 90% of powers ).

Enemy 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7
No Fort: 95 90 81 73 63 54 45 33
0 TH : 95 95 95 95 95 88 78 67
1 TH : 95 95 95 95 95 94 85 73
2 TH : 95 95 95 95 95 95 91 80
3 TH : 95 95 95 95 95 95 95 85

So basically with no to hit buffs you are capping anything up to and including purples minions ( +4s ). I believe that Bosses and Lieutenants are generally as easy to hit as minions of the same level ( not the same colour ).

In light of this I believe that slotting defence is more useful than to hit as the to hit buff of Fortitude is good enough out of the box.

Okay, I have my RI, EF and AB with 3 slots along with Fistful of Arrows, next level is Flaming arrow and then I begin the long haul to stamina at level 20 and can start adding additional slots.

I found that the heal really doesn't seem much use it also causes me to put my bow away unlike the other rad powers, however the debuffs and damage seem to work well both in teams and solo. Vigilance really helps the end cost of the 2 toggles, I'm looking forwards to getting to SOs now.

AFAIK Tough costs almost twice as much endurance as Invincibility.

With invincibility, the first enemy counts as 4, so you actually get 10 defence from 2 enemies. 6 would give you 15% defence. Invincibility works against most damage types, unlike tough and so helps to cover your weaknesses too, rather than just strengthening your strength.

I've already got to 6. I took Snap Shot, RI, Fistful of Arrows and Accelerate Metabolism.

Currently I'm lacking on the single target damage dealing, but I'm planning to get Enerving Field and then Flaming Arrow ( Superior damage at level 10 ) as my next 2 powers.

Fistful of arrows is pretty good, it's a 20-30 degree cone with a pretty good range. Using it on large spawns of RI'd blues and whites in the Hollows seems to work well.

I'm hoping that they will be enough attacks until I can pick up Explosive Arrow.

I did read that Archery has a long weapon draw animation, however it seems that even when using Rad powers I keep my bow in my left hand.

When do you suggest slotting Accelerate Metabolism, currently the plan is to have it slotted quite late?

Also what do you think of the slotting priorities of Radiant Aura, it seems a really poor heal.

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If you like playing a close quaters defender, Short Circuit from electricity is a killer - I have one with NO slotted end modifiers (just got it) and it seems to drain over 50% of even level minions end on one shot. Recharge isnt to long, so in about 15 secs, all minions are at 0 end.

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Yeah, that's a great power for an empath. I have that and combined with other attacks, I can drain pretty much all the endurance of a mob, which makes healing alot easier

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I have Short Circuit on my Kin/elec. I find with 3 slots of end mods it drains approximnately 75-85% of enemies endurance, this drops off with higher levels. You then have 10-15 seconds to survive the enemies attacks until they are all drained and helpless. So unless you have a good tank absorbing aggro it can be really risky thing to do. Pre ED six slotted it was capable of completely taking out entire spawns and meant that you could almost tank if you absorbed the alpha strike.
The electricty secondary has another great power, Tesla Cage. An extra hold REALLY helps as it allows you to help the controllers of the team hold bosses/AVs/Giant Monster/Hamidon.

Cool. I like it. I hope Noob isn't going to actually become Heroic.....

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It's certainly a struggle to run Blazing Aura before you have access to End Reducer SOs, but I'd say the slotting depends on how you use it. The animation for activating it is quite long, so I wanted to run it permanently and slotted End Reducers (2x) accordingly. It missed a lot so I slotted 1xAcc so it would reliably hit more than even level minions to mop up after my Fire Sword Circle alpha-strike

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However with Rage Perma'd I'm not planning to slot ACC, just 3xEnd reds and some Damage. I'm going to use it so I can leave those minions with only a sliver left.

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As I inferred I only switch Blazing Aura off against large CoT groups with loads of nerva spectrals, because getting so much aggro with all that cold damage is pretty much instant death for me (unless I have cold res buffs).

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I wasn't planning on running it 24/7 on mine. Certainly at the moment my endurance management is not in good enough order to even consider it. However with some more slotting it may be feasible.

Siphon Speed is lovely, but I can see it being a pain when in the wrong end of a hazard zone.

I originally went for Stamina but this was pre I6 and so powers were more expensive, I would see how it goes, I certainly needed it before Transference.

Post Transference you don't need stamina, I'm sure it would help but I run Acrobatics, Assault and Tactics without any problems with endurance post Transference.

If I was levelling up again, I would go travel powerless and take Siphon Speed and Inertial Reduction. Inertial Reduction is as good as Super Jump IMO.

Also consider getting Hasten as with Siphon Speed and Hasten you can get some seroiusly wonderful Recharge self-buffs and peram Hasten.

I went for the Jumping pool for Knockback/hold and Immobolise protection too. Originally I went for flight pool for this but Hover was way too slow and fly was too expensive to run without stamina.

IMO the optional powers in the Kinetic line are Inertial Reduction ( good as a travel power substitute ), Increase Density ( -status effects + Res to smash/Energy for 60 seconds ) and Repel ( never had it ).

You probably need to slot ACC as well as having Targetting Drone and Tactics.

To hit a 25% defence PvP target ....
TD+Tactics : 60%
TD+Tactics, 1 ACC : 80%
TD+Tactics, 2 ACC : 100%

This means unfortunately you won't have quite the range....

Incidentally what do you think of using Bitter Freeze Ray and Freeze Ray combo to hold a Stalker, will that work?

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Golden Golem has the Statesman Arc open too. Unfortunately he had to kill off Atta and some measly level 25 Sky Raiders to get the Arc to start but now he is ready to go.....

So yours or mine?

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Let's see what the show-up rate is like.. If it's anything like last weeks 3rd respec TF we'll end up in 2 teams racing it, which should be fun , and we'll need both our arcs to do that (although I've already got through the first couple of missions I think there's more then enough left for the evening)

I'm talking myself into a position where I end up on the team with the 'picked-up' tank again aren't I...

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Probably and I'll be on a no defender team, it worked for a respec but I am severely daunted but the prospect of fighting 2 AVs per mission with no defender to buff/debuff the AVs.

Golden Golem has the Statesman Arc open too. Unfortunately he had to kill off Atta and some measly level 25 Sky Raiders to get the Arc to start but now he is ready to go.....

So yours or mine?

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tanking without taunt, you just need to change tack and use other tools, i've currently got a SS tank at 33 that doesnt have taunt and uses handclap as the primary taunt tool instead, it makes for a much more hair raising chaotic game but ultimately fun in a different way than being the 'rock' in the middle, and having tanken a tanker to 50 already playing that stand-in-the-middle role it does get a bit dull.

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I used Combustion for my major melee aggro grabbing move for 40 levels. Taunt is a safer pull though. Having a tanker control the pulling means that they get the alpha and can choose their battleground. It isn't necessary for all mob types but there are some that can easily get out of hand if you fight them in their spawn place in a large team, Nemesis are my prime example. I guess that Hurl or similar ranged attack could be used for this too though.

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i do think until the higher levels taunt does just great with the single slot on it, once you're post 35-40 it does need either a minor amount of recharge or some taunt in it, personally i go for recharge as it allows a seperate group to be taunted faster than one group taunted for longer.

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I started slotting mine in the late 40s. It suddenly made things way more fun when I had 3 slots of range in it.

Flying Dark/Dark Defender, hidden Spine/Inv Scrapper .....


Back on topic..

I would think about what powers you would need at 20 and only take the essentials, take, Hover at 6-12 and Fly at 14 as the previous poster said.

You could use a planner such as Sherk Silvers CoH Builder. This can be found at http://home.comcast.net/~SherkSilver/
This is the ugliest but most accurate of the planners that I have used.

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I agree with the OP and I don't see any point in slotting SB, as transference gives you a full bar of END every 15 sec or so as long as it hits.

[/ QUOTE ]But if kin is your secondary, you only get transference at L35 while SB comes at L20...

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But if Kin is your secondary Speed Boost is probably worth slotting anyway because it is less effective ( is it 60% or 80% for controllers ). Also as a controller you are less likely to spam Transference as much as you have better things to do than see how fast you can get your recharges by stacking Siphon Speed and Hasten, like perhaps using holds.

I thought I'd build a Rad/Archery defender to see what it is like. I'm planning to be a bit offendery, so slotting Rad infection ASAP and then getting AoEs and high damage attacks ( Fistful of Arrows and Flaming Arrow ).

The high Accuracy of Archery and the -Def of Radiation Infection should mean not having to slot Accuracy in any of my attacks.

Is it worth getting Enerving Radiation before SOs? Given that I would slot with end reds ASAP or should I hold out to Lingering Radiation instead.

For Accelerate Metabolism, do people slot it with recharge and end mods or just recharge, is it worth heavy slotting pre SOs?

Get tough, weave is a bit rubbish for a Fire Tank. For any other tank it stacks with their armour, but Fire Tanks have no def and 7% defence 3 slotted really isn't much good. However 7% def when you already have 20% is okay and 7% when you have 30% is great.

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I have it 2recharge, 1 def at the minute...but I've been sneaky with my empathy defender and respec'd out of the fort slots and put them in my attacks instead. Makes life a little easier for me, and no-one is any the wiser.

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I did a similar thing with Speed Boost...

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At some point I'm of course going to put the slots back, but in the meantime I've slotted up cosmic burst to great effect. Maybe at 40 or 42 I'll stick the fort slots back in there like it used to be, 2 rec, 2 def, 2 tohit.

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I wouldn't think that the tohit buffs are as worthwhile as the def, the bonus is 25% which is pretty damn good out of the box, enough to convert purples to whites as far as hitting is concerned.
Personally I'd prefer to have 39 defence and 30 tohit buff ( 3 def, 1 tohit ) than 35 defence and 35 tohit buff ( your slotting ). However it does depend who you generally give it to in the group.

I like SS on my brute. Fast attacks makes building Fury pretty easy. Being able to get your heavy hitter really early at level 8 helps lots too.

For the secondary I find Firey Aura is pretty good. It is an endurance cheap set and also a power cheap set too, only 2 toggles ( unless you go for the Aura ) and the second best heal in the secondaries ( Healing Flames, I rate Dark regeneration more ). It also has an end recovery power.

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All bow down before the gods that are kinetics defenders

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Or maybe just the Gods' short order cooks...

Kinetic defender: "The usual sir?"
Zeus : "Yes, please, a plate of Transference with a Speed Boost on the side"
Kinetic defender: "Would you like anything else that, Increase Density perhaps?"
Zeus : "No Increase Density today but perhaps I'll have a small Inertial Reduction, I'm feeling like a small pick me up"
Kinetic defender: "Just one minute...."

Wait until you get Cloak of Fear. Then suddenly it rocks. Although end cost is baaaaad.

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Seen a spine/DA run out of end with a 3 end mod slotted speed boost. CaBs are allegedly the breakfast of champions

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Wow! I guess he must have been running Quills and Death Shroud....

If CaBs are the breakfast of champions what is Transference?