Werner

The trick is getting super high recharge to perma double stack Active Defense, and then putting Membranes in it, which and up buffing the defense debuff resistance. All said and done, I believe you can hit 95%.

I don't think Nemesis and Cimerorans should be a big problem unless you turn the difficulty way up. For Nemesis, it's the usual tactic of saving the lieutenants until last, then killing them all at the same time. For Cimerorans, just be ready to use Divine Avalanche more than you normally would.

Maybe I should go wall farm and see how it goes. I bet it'll be fine...

Well, as long as were on the subject of "rules of 5", there are a lot of sets where the set bonus for the sixth slot just isn't very exciting. For instance, toxic resistance on purple sets. They have all these great bonuses, and then you hit the sixth slot, and it's like... what? So generally, I just five slot purple sets, and stick something else in the sixth slot. For instance, five Hecatombs and an Achilles' Heel proc in Gambler's Cut. Much better than just slapping in six Hecatombs.

Also good to take that advice for other numbers of IOs. Just keep in mind that you're after enhancement values and set bonuses. You are NOT specifically after completing any sets. That is not your goal. If you get better enhancement and bonuses out of putting in three each of two sets, do that.

Hell, I love the way Regen DIES. It happens so fast, and yet it was still my fault, not my secondary letting me down. If only I'd anticipated better, been a little faster. I almost never die as a result of being out of clicks. I die because I'm not fast enough - at deciding which power is the correct one right now, at clicking that power when the decision is made. I die because I didn't anticipate well enough. I should know what damage I'm taking before it even happens. I should be ready. It's obvious just how much potential is still there, sitting on the table, if only I were good enough to pick it up.

Man, it's been too long since I've played Werner. Wonder how bad I suck at it now, or if I still have those Regen reflexes.

Another excellent way to manage endurance while leveling is to frankenslot your attacks with a heavy emphasis on endurance reduction. I tend to do this in the mid 30s, typically in combination with a respec into my end game attack chain.

And technically, its the name and value of the bonus, not just the value. So you can have five Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge, and also five sets of Kinetic Crash, which also give you +7.5% recharge, because for some reason the game gave the bonuses different names even though they have the same value.

Fortunately, Mids' will warn you about any problems, so you don't really need to be very careful or to know what set bonuses are named. If you click on View Active Sets, it says it somewhere on the pop up in red. I think the top right? Then scroll down the list of sets to find the specific ones.

Basic logic, for me anyway, is that if I can stand toe to toe with an AV with no temps and no inspirations, there is NOTHING in the game that I need to waste time fearing when I could instead be beating their face in.

Siphon Life is a key power with a LOT of slotting possibilities. I recommend frankenslotting since there are so many aspects that need significant enhancement. Here's pretty much the classic thread on the subject.

Soul Drain and Dark Consumption are much more basic, as they're pretty much there for one thing. Dark Consumption is there to recover endurance. Any damage done is incidental, and not worth the enhancement. Soul Drain slotting is all about the recharge. You want it up as much of the time as possible. Again, any damage done is incidental.

There probably are other must have mid ranges, but I think Crushing Impacts and Doctored Wounds are tops on the list for cheap recharge. And Doctored Wounds have very good enhancement values for Reconstruction and Dull Pain. I wouldn't "waste" Doctored Wounds on Instant Healing, though if you have the slots, and haven't violated the rule of 5, go for it.

The two set IOs that I almost always include in my builds, even while leveling, are the Steadfast Protection unique and the Kismet unique. I'm also a big fan of the Gaussian set for the +2.5% defense to all positions, but it's not really an ideal way to slot Build Up. I usually have Tactics or Focused Accuracy, though. I like Mako's Bite for the ranged defense. Not sure what any of those are going for these days. I think prices have gone up on Gaussians, though, so they may not really qualify an a budget set. Not sure about Mako's. I'm guessing not cheap, but not too crazy either.

I bet you play Monopoly and Scrabble to win, too, don't you? That's just... ebil!

As has been said many times, flippers don't raise prices, they normalize prices. They flip by establishing both a price ceiling and a price floor. Nobody can get one for less than the flipper's floor, but nobody will have to pay more than the flipper's ceiling. Flippers tend to push prices towards the equilibrium price. So I suppose if the current price is below equilibrium, they'll push it up. On the other hand, if the price current price is above equilibrium, they'll push it down. In any case, they're not changing the equilibrium price. They're just making prices more stable, more like a store.

Broad Sword is pretty much the same as Katana. There are some minor differences, and they tend to favor Katana, but you won't gimp yourself either way. It may be worth at least getting a FEW levels on each, like taking both to ten. That should give you a good feel for each primary, and really, the feel is the main difference between the two.

As for an absence of guides, I think these days most people just go straight to the forum with questions. Might be nice to just have something to read, but sometimes there isn't.

As far as guides, though, I'd look for Mojo_'s Katana/Willpower guide, and Garthalus's Broad Sword/Willpower guide.

The BEST way to get your IOs is to continue doing whatever you enjoy. You can IO out a character fairly easily by simply playing the game the way you enjoy it the most. Well, as long as you don't most enjoy pure role play without ever defeating any enemies or running any missions. It might take a few hundred hours if you're just running radio missions and really go nuts with the purples and such, but you can do it. The FASTEST ways seem to be farming of various flavors or playing the market.

I don't farm much and I've never had a good farmer, but Alexei can pull in about 12 million per hour on a non-AE farm not counting market value of drops. Maybe call it 50 million per hour considering the market value of the drops and the time spent selling them or crafting and selling. True farming characters can probably earn about three times as fast as I can that way. Not sure how that compares with AE. Never farmed AE in any serious way. Not sure the best way to convert tickets to influence, but I suspect it's random recipe rolls.

People with a good understanding of the market can make billions in a week on market games. Not MANY are earning that fast, but it can be done. I've earned nearly that quickly when I found myself short on influence while outfitting Alexei. I suspect that it's quite common for people to make hundreds of millions per week on the market for a fairly moderate time investment, perhaps an hour. Major strategies are flipping and crafting.

I crank up the difficulty as I level. I think this makes City of Heroes unusual, but you actually get more powerful compared to content as you level, at least from the mid levels on, not less. Archvillains are perhaps an exception, as they appear with great frequency in some of the upper level content. Fortunately, you can now control getting an AV or EB independently of your other settings.

Man, what shouldn't you use Moment of Glory for? It's good for taking a nasty alpha strike. You can use it as a "heal", in that it buys you 15 seconds for your regeneration to work. You can use it as an oh **** button. You can use it when you aren't in any particular danger, but would like some more endurance. I don't think there's any stacking problem with the Rikti invasion accolade.

You CAN set Divine Avalanche on auto, and some do. But I'd recommend getting in the habit of always selecting your next attack manually, rather than having the computer make decisions for you.

I'm still a fan of Fitness, but between your secondary and the Body Mastery epic, and possibly a bunch of IOs, you kind of don't need it on a 50. So probably a lot of people are experimenting with no Fitness builds these days. Regen is probably the best candidate for this. Could probably make a really good Regen build with no Fitness. I know I'd give it serious consideration. But I'd probably take Fitness at least while leveling.

I don't consider Instant Healing useless at all. It is arguably the least useful of the three clicks, but that's hardly the same thing as calling it useless. I would definitely take it.

Getting generic IOs is probably the cheaper way to go in the long run, since you don't have to replace them every five levels. I still just use SOs, though, because I'm too cheap to pay buy it now prices on the market, and too lazy to craft my own or put in bids and wait. I'll generally take the time to frankenslot my attacks in the 30s, but that's about it until 50.

My main experience with Ninja Run is on Sergei, my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes. On him, I use Swift + Quickness + Sprint + Ninja Run, and I go a little over 60 mph, which is perfectly acceptable. The vertical isn't great, but it's enough that I don't really miss Super Jump, which is what I have on most of my characters. You'll go slower on Regen since you don't have Quickness, but I think it's a perfectly viable approach.