Vessel of Light

My Bots/Traps MM is far and away my most versatile toon. It provides decent damage, protects from mez, buffs defense, regen, to-hit, and damage . It can debuff to-hit, damage, regen, recharge, defense, res, speed, and fly. It has two pets that can stun and two stun powers of its own. it has a single target immobilize and with the patron pool it has an AoE immobilize. The poison trap has the choke/vomit effect and a hold proc. It is tough enough to tank all but the hardest enemies and with provoke it has a way to pull targets off of the squishier party members or pets.

The only times it starts to struggle is when the AI starts acting up or the area gets saturated with enemies and the pets start getting attacked consistently.

I will give a nod to PBs, mine changes what it does the most based on what the team needs, where as most of my other toons use the same tactics/powers with a few minor twists to mesh with the rest of the team.

I am looking at picking up the recharge one for my Bots/traps mainly so my traps are up more often. I am interested in the one that helps defense/taunt/stun ( at least I think that is what it is ) for when I am tankerminding. More defense better taunting and with seeker drones and my protector bots photon grenades the maybe taking photon grenade for myself to throw around improved stuns.

I hate the new AI. My bots MM's fights have devolved down to a giant scrum in the center of the enemy ranks instead of a an island of destruction blasting away anyone that gets close. This isn't generally all that bad as even at point blank range my MM still feels durable and damaging. The big problem is on fights where being in melee is a bad idea, I find myself having to resummon alot of bots now days after fighting melee AoE bosses and up. I recall the new siege was terrible to fight, the pets clumped up right next to him for the laser to hit them all and either I or they would react to slowly to avoid the attack. I have yet to try the statesman TF but I imagine ghost widow is a nightmare for MMs now days.

Most people do not like the PBAoE stun. because of only mag 2 and not alot of things to stack it with so your not alone in this view point. If you find you play with other people that have some stuns it can be good for stacking stuns. As for the foot stomp alot of people will take the power because it is one of the stronger ones human form gets. On teams there is often times someone with a hold/imm that will have -kb on it so just hold back a moment before using the foot stomp. Alternately fight around the edges of the fight, you might hit a couple less but you will be knocking stuff into the middle of the fight instead of away from it.

In the end PBs have alot of different ways to be built and played. If you find that you do not like an attack or power try something else.

Quick bit of background. I recently put together a tanker mind build for my Bots/Traps. It is almost complete ( 1 set away ) and doing wonderfully. It has been great fun running ahead of the group to soak alphas draw aggro and simply laugh at the mobs attempts to kill me. But in my current build I do not have trip mine, this is a power that I had a lot of fun with while playing a more supportive role so I am trying to fit it back into my tanker mind build.

The power I would most likely switch out is challenge which leads to my question. If I have provoke do I really need challenge to keep aggro? It seems that sometimes I need to be taunting every couple of seconds to really keep a tough boss/eb/av on me instead of going after my pets or team. I would love to hear from seasoned tanker minds out there based on their in game experiences. I guess I should note that I have almost no direct attacks on my current build.

I find my FF to be very active. True I'm not having to use my bubbles often but I have other FF powers, a whole set of blasts, and even some APP powers. All of which do get thrown around constantly in between bubbling. To some the fact that you don't have to spam the bubbles is a very large part of why FF is great. A person can actually use the rest of their powers instead of having to spam just a few over and over again.

If you feel FF is boring because you don't actively use alot of its powers then a large number of scrappers/tanks/brutes/stalkers/SoAs should also be boring. All you do with your defensive powers is toggle them on and forget about them. The FF atleast has to remember to bubble everyone every three and a half minutes.

Seems like it is Atlas park that is the problem. I cant log in to any of my toons that are in it, but I can log onto ones that are outside it.

You are not the first to think of this type idea and I can understand the appeal of it as you could have a more focused character and generally more powerful within that focus. I do feel that it works against the jack of all trades idea that many believe is the heart of the kheldian though. The most drastic example of this would be a triform PB with light form. It would loose out on some of its human form powers ( or at least it seems like you want to make the human weaker ) and then it would have to pick between nova, dwarf, or light form. That is alot of things someone is going to loose. And when people loose powers or get nerfed they tend to get very upset.

Besides many of the things you say you want the forms to have you can already get very similar effects as is.

Lightform: Blapper is often what people compare a human only to. some good melee, some range, and a bit of resistance.

Squid form: has 2 AoEs if you need more drop to human and you get 2 more, human also has the nuke and build up you say you want for the squid form.

Crab form: removing the slow on dwarf would be nice but if it causes you many problems it has a built in teleport, the same thing many stone tanks use to deal with the slow speed they have. The AoE melee attack of PBs has a taunt component in it IIRC.

You ask for a unstoppable type power but then turn the unstoppable type power we have into a form.

the forms don't benefit from all inherents, until not to long ago the kheldian inherent didn't work in forms for example. And as they don't get fitness right now I doubt they will get it in the future. If you play human while leveling this will free up a few extra powers at low levels which is nice. For myself though I don't look at getting stamina until much later because I spend so much time in forms. This will let me pick up a couple of IO mules and/or a few more good with no slots powers. Leaderships for Muling and veangence is currently the way I think I will be using the extra powers.

I play the inhuman build, and while I am sure that I am far from the best player, I felt like I should chime in with my 2 inf about what works for me seeing as you did ask for people to do so.

As you have suggested my human form is mainly a buff platform. Conserve Energy, Hasten, Essence boost, Photon Seekers, Build Up, followed by shifting to which ever form the situation needs makes my PB rather mean for the first part of a fight.

I end up with alot of powers that I want to preform with little to no slotting and some of my picks are directly because of this. I took Pulsar with a single ACC enhancement and all the IO bonuses to ACC I have it hits fairly well and can give me a bit of time to fire off some human buffs ( or heals ). Glowing touch along with the full medicine pool all work well enough with no extra slots and teammates like to see green numbers pop up over their heads. The added fact that it may actually be saving their lives made it worth the picks to me. I end up taking fitness but don't slot it, the extra end helps cover the fact that I have no End Redux in the human powers and I was struggling to find powers to take in later levels. I also took the Conceal pool. 3 powers to slot in LotG for some nice recharge and I can invis other players and myself which has come in handy.

Quantum Flight is I think about the only one I disagree on and that is probably more of a play style issue. I had it for a while and used it as a last resort defence and it did save my life from time to time. But I came to realize that in most situations that I ended up using it I would help myself or my team just as well or better if I shifted to Dwarf earlier in the fight and become resilient enough to stay in the fight, and pull some of the aggro away from the squishier team members if on a team. With fitness becoming inherent soon this may make it back into my build but leadership for some IO muling and vengeance is also tempting.

Slotting for the most part was simple, Nova and Dwarf are fully slotted except for the dwarf teleport. It works well enough in combat situations with no slots and if I need to travel any real distance I'll switch to human or nova and fly. Hasten, Essence Boost, Build Up, Conserve Energy, and Photon Seekers all have extra slots devoted to them as I found them to be the human form powers I used most.

I didn't build my PB is mids or go into anything to intensive it came about naturally and I have selected and slotted the powers I found myself using most. I don't really frankenslot and tend to go for the full 6 piece set in my powers So I'm guessing that there are places that my build could still be improved on. I picked sets with an eye toward recharge with the low number of powers available to me in each form having them up as much as possible helps a great deal. Also End was rarely a problem, I could already cap my HP with Essence Boost and Dwarf. Resist bonuses don't seem large enough to be worth the effort ( and on teams could be wasted when in Dwarf ) and at the time I started buiding up IOs for my PB I didn't think I could get enough defense to make a noticable difference ( having seen some other players builds I think it is possible now ).

You note End as being a concern but to be honest I rarely felt it on my PB. putting the +end proc into both the nova and the dwarf solved almost all my problems. Until I got the +End accolades and a couple of random bonuses while sloting IOs I could burn myself out of End by hitting hasten without conserve energy and then go nova and constantly fire off my AoE attacks when they were up and ST attacks as filler. Even this would take a minute or two of constant fire before my end bottomed out though.

Lastly a bit on how I play, as I find knowing the context of what a player wants out of a PB helps me make more sense out the powers taken. Solo I play simply. start in human, throw up the buffs that are up (with the amount of recharge I have now days build up is almost always up every mob and the others are up fairly often). Then switch to nova, fire off my AoEs then start working on the remains. If I get held or start taking to much damage I'll drop down to dwarf and then ground and pound the rest of the mob. Rinse and repeat with the next mob. Note I love photon seekers. Both AoEs along with some blasts from them is a wonderful way to open up a fight against a large group. And alternately against a tough melee target/group I will summon them and then engage from range, when the bad guys get close to my squiddy self the seekers generally will home in cause some good damage and more importantly have a chance to send them flying away giving me more time to blast in nova before having to drop down into dwarf for the resistances.

On teams I fill the gaps. If they need a tank I just happen to do fairly well at that job. I have just enough heals to keep a slightly squishy tank alive ( I admit at 50 this isn't as big of a deal but while leveling a suprising number of tanks struggled and the extra heals kept them going ). And with Nova I put out a decent amount of damage. In most groups tanking is covered and my small amount of healing is not needed constantly so I get to play in Nova alot. So human form before the fight, throw up my buffs, switch and then blast away. I also look to play a protective role. being ranged dps gives me a good view of the fight so I can see problems developing and move to counter them. The most common one being ambushes or extra spawns getting aggroed. fly over blast a couple times then drop to dwarf and hold them up until the group gets around to dealing with them. Fill in tanking also comes up from time to time when the RNG decides it doesn't like the main tank and they drop to a bad string of attacks. Spot healing and mez breaking fall under this umbrella as well. A buffer/debuffer/controller that is mezzed can quickly turn the tide of a bad situation if I can get a stimulant off on them. I don't use the heals alot most times I float merrily along shooting bad guys all day long but having the extra support options on hand for the rainy day is always a good thing.

So there you go my thoughts and ideas on the inhuman build and playstyle. The forms are what first atracted me to Kheldians to start and the inhuman lets me fill the gaps of a party better than the other builds I have tried, which is what keeps me playing my PB.

I was introduced to CoX by a friend that wanted me to play it with him. So I started to look around for a concept character I would like to play, the MM seemed interesting and finally I found something that worked for me.

I ended up with Princess Penellope a Bots/traps MM that gets all of her equipment from her very rich and overly caring dad. As such she had to have cute robots because as a teen girl she couldn't have mean or ugly ones. I ended up with

Battle drones - Suzzette, Marianne, Fluffy
Protector bots - Robespierre, Juliet
Assault bot - Sasha ( not the cutest name but an inside joke with friends about an ugly pet with that name being cute )

I might be a bit of a loon but the sounds are part of the reason I love my PB. I also use the sound as an indicator of how I'm doing. If I'm playing well and attacking often I get a nice ringing sound for the whole fight. If I'm off my game or distracted the sound varies.

All the click powers carry over so yes hasten will and so does conserve power. If there is an exception to this rule I don't know what it is.

I have never been picked up specificly to tank but I have quite often ended up spending a large amount of time in dwarf if it is needed to make the team work. With cosmic balance working with the forms now it is very easy to get ~80 or even capped 85% resists by having a 2-3 blasters/scrappers on a team and they are common ATs. That makes for a fairly survivable tank, maybe not up to the standard of well built tankers and it can't touch an IOed one, but more than enough for the majority of the game. Like Guardien I have tanked many TFs,AVs, and GMs. I also like having an extra defensive option besides lightform as it locks you out of nova/dwarf and has a crash ( on a human only I like lightform alot because then I only have to deal with the crash ).

As for the original poster I think it should be clear that a PB that doesn't tank or have dwarf is very viable. Just take a few break frees for mez problems and pick human powers that cover weaknesses and augment the strengths of nova. Some of the shields and the heal along with some of the attacks would seem a good spread. You can start in nova fire off the two AoEs drop to human fire off a couple more AoEs then go melee down the big ones that are left with ST attacks.

As one of the PB that generally goes along on these TFs I have built up my second build as a support ( medice pool, leadership ) just for all kheld TFs. No body makes me do this and I don't always use it, but I find it seems to help. It is also alot of fun to play healer for a team that doesn't expect healers to only heal.

Vessel of Light
triform Peace Bringer
593 hours
298 patrols

Thought I would be higher than that but its not bad for a 12 month vet.

I just had to post real quick about my first khtf. Aside from constant lag I had a blast. On the end AV fight I got to blast, to heal the kin and empath from time to time, rezzed the same empath multiple times ( you think for a healer he would take better care of himself ) and even tanked riechsman for a minute when the tank and a couple of others died. This just reaffirmed what I love about my PB I was able to fill every single need the group had on the fly. Having Reichsman talk to my photon seekers was just icing on the cake.

Just a quick note the OP said they have a peace bringer not a warshade so they don't have eclipse. It seems like a PB could get a decent amount of defense but it would seem unlikely that you could get to the soft caps while in a form. Although a dwarf with a decent amount of defense backing up its resistance is rather tough so I could see the use of picking up a decent amount of defense from IOs.

Why do people always want to take away glowing touch? Perhaps I just play oddly but it, along with the medicine pool ( which I understand some people dont like on khelds), gives me something I can do to actively help out team members. From helping out a tank that is slowly dropping to keeping a blaster alive just long enough to kill the enemy that is after them or even healing the healer. Note I don't have the power with extra slots and I don't normally play as a healer but it works very well for me. The change to restore essence could maybe fill this spot but unless it was a rather large AoE heal I would be more inclined to save it for when I need health. The idea about attacks giving -resist is interesting, it does seem rather odd to have attacks debuff -resist and -def though, if it is felt that PB damage is actually lacking why not up the damage instead of making attacks debuff multiple things. I would take the resist and even the added AoE healing if it was offered but I would like to keep my glowing touch.