slainsteel

I am so glad you saved the day.
Really, in tears of happiness here; honest!

1.) If you have a pair of purple IO's, you have the money - craft them, sell them, you'll be set.

2.) *shrug* Build well, and your toon will _do well

3.) Is there a reason why you can't take another PPP? I am not sure which is the best one, but wouldn't it make sense to pick whichever one you feel is the best for the build rather than by origin? I mean, considering you did want to 'solo' right?

Take this thread as a starter; make a build, start another thread specifically asking for advise on it. By the time the thread is done, you should be solid.

Do clarify your cost limits - if you are unsure of the prices, I believe every IO except the LOTG and the Basilisk's Gaze I've used in my build is cheap; otherwise look up the market.

Seriously? Did you completely miss that part about, '5 minutes, just as an example'?


Let me clarify this again, "To whoever might have been thinking of doing so, *DO NOT* use the build I posted. It is an 'example' of what can be done, not exactly a 'good' build."

Hopefully that should do it for the brainiacs we have here.

Plus that :P

As I said, made it in five minutes, it isn't exactly a master piece :P
I just wanted to put out a build that hits s/l soft-cap and perma-hasten that is also ultra-cheap.

Oh for crying out loud, having trouble with +0's on a dark/dark?
Geez, I made this build in 5 minutes and it's under 500mil (maybe even 300mil if you economize), and tell me it can't handle +0 diff solo,

I actually followed your guide to a large extent when building and playing with my first Ill troll (excellent guide btw! thanks so much for writing it); so a few things I found were fairly useful if one adjusted their play style to a /cold mindset were these,

.) Capped range def: So I really like this for the simple reason that I use my Ill/Cold to proxy for a tank on entire teams on all of the hardest TF's in the game. PA's don't always keep aggro off you when you do so. A common example is when Ill tanking recluse on a speed STF - we always skip the flier, so when tanking recluse, the flier often aggro's on me, not my PA's (since I am hovering right over Recluse's head while moving off to debuff the towers every once in a while Additionally, I use him to pull all the 4 av's before Recluse too (along with other AV's earlier in the TF). Without capped range def, my Ill/Cold wouldn't last very long.

Similar situations happen when going through Tin Mage - decoys will only hold so much aggro, other bosses _will aggro on you if you're running tank less. Running on tankless teams, this is very common.

With an Ill/Cold, since I can get my resistance so high, with capped range def, I can um, out survive quite a few brutes/tanks

Of course, if you have a tank, capped range def is of less use, but then so are the decoys of less use

.) Usage of fear/holds: I don't see either as a very useful power unless really stacked up - minions/lts are a non issue with my build. They almost never hit me, hit me for very little, and often they die in one go with sleet (proc'd for damage -resist) and fireball. Bosses don't get held unless holds are stacked.

.) I _hate getting into the 'middle' of the action unless I really need to (for example when pulling AV's or tanking the flier); I always hover in a distance and use ranged powers, which is why powers PBAoE like flash, choking cloud (in an Ill/Rad) end up being a waste.

.) Cold versus Rad mindset: The major difference between /Rad and /Cold is the emphasis on bunching up. /Cold is a very 'slow' oriented power, which with it's many debuffs, ends up making everything around you seem like it's working in slow motion; with an Ill/Cold, a typical pattern of Sleet THEN decoys works better than decoys then sleet, since decoys tend to scatter as soon as they're cast among large groups.

This changes a few mechanics; first, makes capped range def more important (since you'll take more aggro because of casting sleet first), makes spectral terror less useful (though still useful, just less), makes fire ball more important.

To summarize, /colds have more defense/resistance and a lot of slows; an ill/cold's play style hence changes from (Terror, Decoys), kill stuff, to Slow, Decoys, kill stuff.

(Note: This is the general style, not a rule - when vuln'ing Aeon or taking on other AV's, obviously cast decoys first )

In the end, it does come down to play style too; but Ill/Cold is really quite a different monster than Ill/Rad, is what I'm trying to impress upen people here


Edit: One more thing, this entire post is based on the fact that with the Spiritual Alpha, it is actually possible to cap range def and perma-PA on an Ill/Cold fairly easily Before the alpha's, I'd have totally said 'screw ranged def'

Again, style.

I personally found it a waste; others swear by it, yet others I know also find it a waste. Depends on how you play.

Um, yeah - we'll never beat Cole anyway. It's not like after we finish the STF Lord Recluse some how goes away?

If it's a set of trials, they could 'easily' have made this a more epic story, conclude it over i20/i21, and then with i23, expanded the incarnate story to bring other stuff in? I mean there are a whole host of possibilities.

Yeah so we'd be saving the world in the content provided by i20/21, and then again in i22/23, etc - but we're super heroes! That's what we do - I mean really.

In the end, these trails are pot shots at cole, and not worth the effort and time from a lore perspective. I mean really? It's easier to vanquish recluse's master plan and save the world, but we need to have teams twice as big and face harder challenges and we get to, take out a factory?

To put it into perspective, a fitting ending text to the trials should be.

"You have destroyed the Behavioral Adjustment Facility.
Emperor Cole is amused."

"You have destroyed the Lambda Sector Facility.
Emperor Cole is annoyed."

And we care because?

I am pretty certain when the Omega team went to the Rikti home world, they didn't first try to make sure that the Rikti populace thought of us as 'liberators' or 'nice guys helping out', right?

Praetorian earth is a threat, and I would assume we'd deal with it - rather than take pot shots at Cole and then jeer from a distance.

I mean really, again, super powerful, super incarnate ruler - can't keep the news of two facilities blowing up from his population? And if public opinion mattered that much to him, we wouldn't really be calling him the 'tyrant' would we?

For an ill/cold? plenty.

Let me name a few,

• Def power - manuevers, CJ
• Aid Self with int reducer
• LOTG holders
• 4 out of 5 fire ancillary powers
• hover and SS
• 3/4 fighting set
  This is assuming you have the 'essentials' already

Good point.
Honestly, I am a bit biased here - I've found that fear is mostly unnecessary past the slow/kd that sleet gives; I tried spectral terror a few times, but it seemed really, um, overkill.

I'd take it though if I had a slot spare. I do suppose it does have to do with play style too.

I don't disagree on the mechanics of it all, sure is a challenging trial.

It's just that the backstory gives the task/trial a whole new feel for me (and RP'ers I'd assume, thought I am not one). Lore is important to quite a few people, I'd assume :-\

I would agree to an extent - it just doesn't hit me as that big a blow to Cole.
I mean, the guy can take power from the well of furies and super power his already super powered heroes - how much work would a destroyed facility be for him to rebuild.

I am sure it's a severe dent (assuming it's a really one of a kind facility), but again, not really 'epic'

Wow; dude, I gotta put you on my friends list.
You actually know the thoughts of the _entire CoX community.

Sweet!

Dark has a lot of options to increase recharge - dark watchers despair is literally peanuts, and gives 5% rech in just 4 slots. Stupefy is cheap too, and there are others. One really just needs to explore.

I've made pretty good builds that cost less than 500mil - and 500mil is about 1 weeks of work, 2-3 hours a day, even for a totally SO'ed and not well built toon. There is a thread somewhere about this guy who started with 0 and in 2 hours a day of game play made about 1 billion - just using AE reward rolls and marketeering.

If NC soft took the approach you're describing, I'd be fine with it - maybe my experience with freemium games is biased; only ones I've experienced have been of the money=rewards model.

*shrug* you asked how not to suck, not how not to suck without spending inf.
Though, to be honest, it doesn't have to be that expensive.


You can actually set up a character to get most of that with about a week of game play, at most two. Do TF's, get merits, exchange them for hero merits; either do good rolls or buy LOTG's with them - sell, buy IO's.

Also learn how to play the market, make more money. Most of the IO's you'll need, you'll be able to buy of the market at lower than what you buy SO's at from vendors.

Oh, install mids, and create a good cheap build - if you need help with that, feel free to ask on the forums, plenty of folk here ready to give good advise with that.

I have the temp powers, I prefer the jet pack inherent - but that's not the point here :P

My point is that for a fixed amount, we get a small benefit. It isn't a benefit that increases with more money thrown at it. I would consider that acceptable.

No, really?? OMG, I am such a n00b

So I really like having it as an inherent, that way it still works on Mo runs; second, it works on every toon I have, from level 1 onwards - and no worrying about recharging it and all.

I actually find rad more painful to work with unless fighting AV's. By the time all the debuffs land, the debuff target is often dead.