Disappointment and Specs

My main is an Invuln/EM Tanker, and after returning following a year-and-a-half hiatus, I've discovered that CoH has lost one of the key elements that kept drawing me back.

Once upon a time, There was no 'required' power pools. You didn't have to stress over Set bonuses or 'Optimal Slotting'. In short, The game was playable (and enjoyable) no matter how hardcore or how casual I decided to be.

Now, however, I find that without specific power pools, specific IO sets, and perfect Spec, I can no longer just jump into any aspect of the game I want to and be competitive. It feels that the post-50 game has devolved into a gear race/Theorycrafters only kind of game (primarily because of the invention system).

What I want to know is why did this happen? ...and when? Why did one of the things that made CoX unique in the MMO world get destroyed like this on top of the Ridiculous weakening of Invuln over the years?

(Yes, I'm feeling considerably bitter about all this.)

What is it that you want to do that you feel you can't be competitive at?

Many, many people seem to have an experience different from yours - still having fun on characters without IO sets or Optimal Slotting.

What happened to make you feel that Optimal Slotting was the norm rather than the concern of just a subset of players?

Just a few examples:

Anything involving PvP. At all.
I did ITF today. Invuln Tank. 3/4 Alpha Strikes would kill me. No time to do ANYTHING.
Oh, an AV? Either drop unstoppable, or just drop.

Needless to say, the amount of damage I was taking? I did -not- feel like a tank. Not one bit. I spent more time in the red than anything else, and it's infuriating.

EDIT: As one player told me, "Oh, you need to have Tough and Weave to be a decent tank at the top end". So that's TWO power Pools I'm apparently required to have (Fitness/Fighting) to be able to function worth a crap at the upper tier of the game. Purely ridiculous.

Well PvP is probably unavoidable. In any game top end PvP requires you to spend ages optimizing your build.

However for PvE the game is still balanced around SOs, IOs make the game easier but they are by no means required.

In your specific case, invulnerability has been the subject of several rebalances throughout the history of the game so my suspicion is that your build is not really suited to the current style of invincibility (this is purely a guess on my part, I've never played a tank above level 20). You might want to swing by the tanker forum and ask for advice on slotting Inv (specify SOs or people will assume you're asking about IOs).

Finally I will note that Invincibility does rely on Defense for a good bit of it's mitigation and Romans have pretty hefty defense debuffs. With SO slotting you probably didn't have enough defense or DDR to prevent a cascading failure against an 8-man spawn size so you were basically reliant on your resistances alone for mitigation. The simple solution for this (other than using IOs) is to select other teammates to compensate. Adding a Defender/Controller/Corruptor/Mastermind with Defense buffs would probably have solved most of your problems.

I have two level 50 Invul tanks, both of which have tanked the ITF without the Fighting Pool. So as others have said, it can be done.

The ITF can be a tough TF, especially if you don't know to watch for the Cims' brutal defense debuffs. Reminds me of the first time I tanked Carnies, not knowing about their end drains--it was ugly.

And as Adeon said, Invul had some buffs a while ago, and if your build is not setup to take advantage of them, that could be a problem too.

I second the suggestion that you drop by the tanker forum and ask for advice--we're very friendly! Lots of people there could give you some suggestions on how to optimize your build without the Fighting Pool or IOs.

Frankly I'm glad to read Invulns have done the ITF without Fighting Pool and without IO defense bonuses. My Invuln has both of those things, and he's quite strong for the ITF and against Cimerorans in general, but it's nice to hear others have had success without tweaking their builds too much.

My Invuln has also done well exemplared waaay down, where his set bonuses and fighting pool do not work. Just using basic Invulnerability/SS, with degraded enhancement values due to exemplaring a 50 to below 20, he's held large numbers of end-draining clockworks at bay in Posi and Synapse Task Forces.

The OP might want to take a closer look at Invulnerability before playing the bitterness-at-the-nerfs card. Current Inv (after recent minor buffs) is usually regarded as the second-strongest defensive primary after a Granite-form Stone Tanker, before IOs, and it benefits well from IOs due to its layered mitigation.

But think for a second -- Inv doesn't have the penalties to offense and mobility that plague a Granite-form Tanker. That means...that Inv is probably the strongest defensive set in the game that does not penalize your offense and mobility.

Other Tankers might envy that. I know a Brute did, last time I ran an ITF with my tanker...while waiting for a rez, he typed, "HOW are you STILL ALIVE???"

Inv is a great set. There are sets out there that probably merit complaints; I don't think this is one.

1. lolPvP
2. If you're having trouble "competing" then you're doing it wrong. The point of the PvE game is to HAVE FUN, not compete with other players. If you want to compete with other players, see #1 above.

It seems obvious to say, and others have said it with more words, but power choices are key.

I took my 50 ma/inv scrapper and decided, just to be fun, to do a second build as a knockback monster. Just using SOs, but the first build was about half SO the rest frankenslotting for Regen, etc.

She was unplayable. Sure, she could punt even level minions into the next county, but that was about it. It was a totally useless toon.

BUT... [and it's a big but]

My invuln choices were the same, slotted the same [mostly]. My fighting was bad. I was as effective one of those team members who spends half their time chatting during major battles.

Read and study the guides. Use Mids to place the key powers, pick some pool stuff that's good for PvP if that's what you dig. Respec, rebuild, enjoy.

Are you familiar with the changes brought on by Enhancement Diversification in Issue 6?

I"ve tanked the ITF several times on Inv/Mace. Tough and Weave never present.

I have all nine Inv powers slotted for capped resistance and defense. Also, Dull Pain for maximum recharge and heal.

Or, you could post your build, or post it in the tanker forums for assistance. You should specify that you are using a SO-only build.

The only IOs I use on my characters are common IOs... and only to replace the SOs. That's about it. Who needs to min/max? My characters run just fine without it.

I only have one character that uses common IOs, one that uses sets, and two that I've actually put any effort into. Most of my characters still use SOs, because I'm too lazy to swap them out.

I have, at last count, 14 tankers.

2 have tough. 0 have weave. 14 are perfectly capable of being primary tank for a team.

There are no "required" powers in the game other than the forced pick of your 1st secondary power.

Fitness pool gets an "almost required", especially for tankers, but even it can be worked around without too much trouble.

It seems to me that either you've got unreasonable expectations from the early days when a tank could /em newspaper while holding an entire map's worth of aggro, or you've got a very out-of-date build that skipped "worthless" powers that aren't "worthless" anymore.

I'd suggest heading over to the Tanker forum and posting your build, you'll get plenty of advice (and probably some criticism so be sure and pick up tough hide first )

On a side note: the ITF can be very difficult for any toon that uses Defense as a major component of thier mitigation. Those Romans pack a nasty defense-debuff effect.

Invulnerability is a hybrid set. It has both resistance and defense backed up with Dull Pain.