greygriffin

All my controllers are, or will be, Ice Mastery. They all explain it as part of their magical nature:

The ice/cold/ice is a mage whose magic is specifically attuned to ice and cold- it only makes sense that she can sling the same cold shield on herself that the rest of the team are wearing.

The illusion/time will be /ice, she is a faerie of the Winter Court (the illusions and time warping are faerie glamours).

The earth/storm will probably go /ice as well. He is a god-spirit of a mountain who has been bound by a powerful wizard into a mortal body.

A player in my SG has a bs/ice stalker, he has a snow leopard costume (using the Animal Pack) and the Vanguard broadsword coloured blue/white so it looks like another ice construct.

Magic origin is quite easy to explain due to the elemental nature of Ice... for a Technology character, I would give them power armour and say that it is coated in a superscience material that is ultra-hard when frozen, hence the armour incorporates cryogenic systems to keep the outer layer cold.

Tied for my favourites:
Brutes. All aboard the fury train! As sturdy as a tank in normal PVE content, but with the addition of the demented steamroller playstyle and big orange numbers everywhere you go.
Corruptors. Buffs for the team, debuff the enemies. By that point the mobs are probably on about half health. Drop your biggest AOE. SCOURGE!

Enjoyable:
Fortunatas. Mine is built as a scraptroller, which might not be the most efficient way to play, but it is cool to make a guy scream inside his head while you skewer him.
Blasters. Damage and more damage, always fun, but I always feel their secondaries leave something to be desired.

Problematic (I want to like these, but I have an issue with how they play):
Controllers. Solidly locking down a huge mob is a lot of fun, but not being able to *do anything* with all these held enemies is frustrating. On a full team, not an issue, but in a 2 or 3 man group it winds me up. I also resent having to go find someone to help me because I need a mish badge for an accolade or similar and there's no way I can do it by myself. (The controllers I've rolled have been low dmg powersets though (ice/ and earth/), so I appreciate I don't have a complete overview of the AT. A fire/ or ill/ would probably make me change my mind.)
Stalkers. I find the assassin playstyle a lot of fun, maybe I just like ATs with big orange words to go with their big orange numbers. However in practice it becomes build up->assassin strike->scrap scrap scrap->eek red health->run away->repeat, which doesn't make you feel very super.

Meh (I'll play these if a particular powerset takes my interest or has some unique feature, but not in general):
Defenders. Every time I play one I wish I could scourge.
Tankers. All of the sturdy with none of the killy.
Scrappers. I want to like scrappers more, as they are a solid AT and extremely deadly, but the random crit mechanic just doesn't grab me as much as the immediacy of the fury mechanic.
Masterminds. Fallen out with masterminds, I've tried two and the micromanaging of the pets has lost my interest.

Not enough experience to say:
Dominators. I really want to like dominators but I've never got one high enough level to see for myself how powerful they are when built well. I expect if I ever get my current one (plant/fire) into the 30s and permadom'd that I will love him to bits.
HEATs. Never played either type past the Hollows.
Spiders of both kinds. Don't have one.
Night Widows. Don't have one.

TL;DR: Fun play for me is a combo of good damage and damage mitigation. I also like the inherents that change your gameplay. Hence, for me, the villain hybrid ATs are the most fun.

I have a 38 ice/traps that I've been leveling up pretty much entirely on TF/SFs with a bit of soloing. She's been an effective and fun character to play all this time, and I've liked the utility of the slows and holds in ice/, especially since IOing out at 30 and having the hold procs.

However, last night I duoed with a friend on his Night Widow, and every single spawn kept fleeing in every direction possible once I'd opened with mortar/poison trap/caltrops/ice storm, and it got us killed a few times as the enemies weren't being debuffed and our AOEs were ineffective. He found it really aggravating and commented 'brutes must hate you'. Now, I've never seen this happen before on this character, presumably because I've been on TF teams all the time with a mezzer and/or a tank/brute using taunt or a taunt aura.

How can I mitigate this? The slows of caltrops and ice didn't seem to help at all (but I haven't got either slotted for slow- caltrops has a dmg proc, and ice storm has posi's blast and the slow dmg proc).

I tried web nade and freeze ray to lock mobs down for my DOTs, but for a full size spawn of 8-10 mobs by the time I had them all locked down my teammate had killed them all. So I just resorted to blasting and being a manuevers/ffg defence buffer.

I intend to take web envelope at 44 (after scorpion shield at 41 which I would say is more urgent) but am I stuck with scattering mobs until then or is there something I'm missing about how to keep them together?

There's one animation that really irritates me, the one that you do for Air Superiority while flying. You do a two handed downward smash, fine, but when flying you also do a strange squatting motion as you do it where your legs fly out to the sides. You also get this animation when applying the radiation debuffs (again only when flying). It looks very silly on my flying female characters.

For Power Customisation, I wish you could change the colour of the quills/toxic goo that spines exude. I've tried playing a cyborg spines/ using the Metal customisation set and a demon spines/ using the Crystal set and deleted them both as the blurpy green toxic stuff just doesn't look right.

Also I'd like to be able to customise Pool Powers' colours -it's possible for Incarnate powers- so why can't my dark corr have murky black hasten, etc.?

Thanks very much for your commentary, it's been really useful, especially on the endurance figures.

I had already bought and stowed away in my SG base a full set of Obliterations as a possible replacement slotting for FSC, so I think I'll go with that as you've outlined in your last post.

Much appreciated.

Thanks very much, those numbers are a good improvement all round, and I don't need a complete build's worth of new IOs. The lack of perma Hasten is not really a concern to me, I understand that is normally a very expensive prospect.

With the improved recharge I'm not too concerned about losing Breath of Fire (it was a pain to keep jumping around to aim the cone anyway) as I can just use FSC more often. I haven't used Unstoppable in teams for a long time either (sometimes use it when solo at full difficulty but with a better build I shouldn't need it I guess?), so no great loss there either.

I see that the end drain has gone up but so has the end recovery, do you expect the overall effect to be about the same?

I suppose I will have to learn how to use Taunt effectively.

Thanks for helping out!

I just did a paste of the short forum export so not sure why the datalink is broken, however here it is again.

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...C0FF03D129D67A

The datachunk works for me when I import it back into Mids', but I shall repost it as well.

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1409;705;1410;HEX;|
|78DA6554DB4E1A5114DD338C221795AB8022328080830C92F 6BD89B7C4445BBCBC1|
|B6A4F7592C96800ADA62FFD8BFE40AF3FD17BFB097D68BFA1 97D7BE94EEB3F7A942|
|2070D6398B357B6DD69E61E7723D0CF0E40E68A135B7DDED1 EAE76CE7BC2BF7FE40|
|8EF4884D63AA2D7F6F2ABE7AEEB0780147D7BB8235C21EC4D 4774AE783FCFFCBA78|
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|CCAD11E6F608B3695CFFA1F40391EB7F817E2B2E93E27D327 1B3FF3AC0FF03D129D|
|67A|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

I've just double checked importing these into Mids' and they both work for me.

I've recently got back into CoX and started working on improving my fire/inv brute, who was first IOd out around issue 13 or so (hence things I believe have fallen out of favour/been nerfed like the BOTZ). I would appreciate any suggestions on how to improve him.

I would like to build him as capable of performing both the roles of tank and damage, not super-specialised either way, but able to fill in for either role where a team is lacking.

Currently he has 46.3% S/L defence and 70.3% S/L resist, and about 27% F/C/E/N defence and 25% resists to same. Should I improve his elemental def any, and how best to do so? I'm quite reliant on purples against pure fire and energy mobs when playing at high difficulty.

My current intention with his build is to perma Dull Pain, I intend to put Level 30 LOTG 7.5s in CJ, Weave, and Tough Hide. (Currently with T3 Spiritual Alpha +1 LOTG 7.5 Dull Pain has about 5s downtime.) Is this an effective move and are these good places to put them?

Notes on power selections - I don't like playing with no travel power, and for conceptual reasons it should be Super Speed. I also don't care for Taunt on a brute and would prefer to set moar things on fire! instead.

I have 1.6bn inf, so purples and PvP IOs are out, but most everything else is doable with a few A-merit runs to keep costs down.

The order I've taken his powers is fairly random as I did a quick and dirty respec to get playing with some friends after I19/inherent fitness. I appreciate this needs to be looked at in more depth to minimise losses of bonuses when exemplaring (e.g. Incinerate needs to be moved to earlier).

Powers I'm not too sure what to do with are Boxing - I don't even have it in my powers tray, is there anything useful I can do with it? and Breath of Fire which I like as a situational extra AOE but I don't know if its slots can be used any more effectively. Also I expect that cool things can be done with Health and Stamina (Numina's unique?), but I'm not sure what would work best.

Thanks very much for any help you may be able to offer.

This is his build as it currently stands:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.94
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Cretan Bull: Level 50 Science Brute
Primary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Secondary Power Set: Invulnerability
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Fire Sword -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(3), KntkC'bat-Knock%(5)
Level 1: Resist Physical Damage -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(5), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(7), RctvArm-ResDam(7)
Level 2: Temp Invulnerability -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(9), RctvArm-ResDam(9), RctvArm-EndRdx(11), ImpSkn-ResDam/EndRdx(11)
Level 4: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(13), Dct'dW-Rchg(13), Dct'dW-Heal(15), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Heal-I(17)
Level 6: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(17), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(19), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(19), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(21), GSFC-Build%(21)
Level 8: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(23), RechRdx-I(23)
Level 10: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 12: Cremate -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(25), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(25), KntkC'bat-Knock%(27)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(27)
Level 16: Unyielding -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(29), RctvArm-ResDam(29), RctvArm-EndRdx(31), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(31)
Level 18: Breath of Fire -- Range-I(A), EndRdx-I(31)
Level 20: Resist Elements -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(33), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(33), RctvArm-ResDam(33)
Level 22: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(34), RctvArm-ResDam(34), RctvArm-EndRdx(34), ImpSkn-ResDam/EndRdx(36)
Level 24: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), GftotA-Def/EndRdx(36), Ksmt-Def/EndRdx(36), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx(37)
Level 26: Fire Sword Circle -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(37), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(37), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(39), Sciroc-Dam%(39), EndRdx-I(39)
Level 28: Invincibility -- GftotA-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+(40), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(40), S'dpty-Def/EndRdx(40)
Level 30: Resist Energies -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(42), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(42)
Level 32: Greater Fire Sword -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(42), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(43), KntkC'bat-Knock%(43)
Level 35: Tough Hide -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(43), DefBuff-I(45)
Level 38: Unstoppable -- EndMod-I(A), RechRdx-I(45), RechRdx-I(45), RechRdx-I(46), ResDam-I(46)
Level 41: Incinerate -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(46), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(48), KntkC'bat-Knock%(48)
Level 44: Superior Conditioning -- P'Shift-End%(A)
Level 47: Physical Perfection -- P'Shift-End%(A)
Level 49: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff-I(A)
Level 50: Spiritual Total Radial Revamp
Level 50: Ion Total Core Judgement
Level 50: Reactive Total Radial Conversion
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(48), Heal-I(50)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(50), EndMod-I(50)
Level 1: Fury
Level 4: Ninja Run