A proper guide to min maxing/builds?

So, with the SB enhancements, all the free merits floating around and the ATOs, why don't we put togther a general build guide with advice on how squeeze every last % out of your toon?

I am willing to write this up if I can get someone to proof read it and check it for me?

soft cap your defence. cram as much recharge as you can after that. the end

I'm going to differ from Dz131 and suggest that there isn't actually any one correct way to approach getting the most out of a character in general so that would be the main hurdle to such a guide right there. For me at least there certainly isn't any heuristic I apply to a character to solve the puzzle, it's just a matter of tossing different ideas around until something potent congeals.

It's easy to say "softcap ___ defense!" but what kind would be "most min/maxed?" Would it be better to rely on the glad armor global or would a more effective use of your available resources be alternative methods? Different answers to those questions can radically change a build. My advice to aspiring "min/maxers" (not sure why that term annoys me but it does) would be that practice makes better.

It's really hard to come up with a rule for min/max that actually applies to all AT and powerset combinations. For a scrapper you'll want to maximize your damage, defense then recharge yet for an Ill/Rad controller you'll probably want to focus primarily on recharge.

There's lots of differing ways to maximize a character as well and that may well change from one player to another according to what they're trying to get out of their character. I applaud the OP for wanting to take on this rather daunting task; the biggest pitfall I can see is falling into the "thou shalt build this way heretic!" trap when there's multiple ways you can go in optimizing a character's build.

My own thumb rule is to look at the character and assess what it's strong at and what it's weak at, then work out a build to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses. Yes, sometimes that's the "defense then recharge" route however many other times it's something else.

As an example I have a Dark/Dark defender that I've optimized for tohit debuffing. In doing so I quite deliberately maximized the debuff potential at the expense of some of the damage output. This was designed as a team character and the purpose is to completely neuter entire spawns for the rest of the team to kill quickly and safely, and it can maintain a -70% tohit debuff on an entire spawn and well over -100% on a single target before you take Dark Servant into account. It would have been equally valid to have chosen to build that defender to maximize damage and defense, particularly if it was a solo character.

I was thinking more along the lines of explaining slotting for hasten, sources of diffrent types of stats, such as recharge. Maybe some frankenslotting advice, ATOs and other such thing.

So what you're saying is... something like this?

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=274219

Well people can always go to Project Pine

https://sites.google.com/site/projec...build-tutorial

So no one would be interested in a guide that covers min maxing? Things like what is better, SBEs or normal enhancements and in what powers, how much recharge is needed for certain things, frankenslotting, where and when. ATOs, etc?

wut? It'll be different 4 every build

You can plagariaze from my old start of a guide if you want: http://pastehtml.com/view/b7pokm6ab.html

I don't agree with all of my own advice and remember this was beginners, without digging into hard-core ramifications of a tricked out set. But it may provide some baseline philosophy of approach and/or specific slotting options (note: some have typos I never corrected; I tend to type Recharge when I mean Endurance for example).

Yep sorry. Was a first draft that never got revised. Kept meaning to get back to it but never did, and it was never officially released. There are some very wrong statements in there that I would have probably caught in editing. Hazard of how it was written (mostly stream of consciousness style one Saturday morning, type type type type ).

I would like to see a guide that lays out the best ways to actually build for defense. Whenever I would read a guide about a particular AT or powerset, it's instruction to getting softcapped defenses was always "get softcapped defenses", which isn't any help. I can''t use mids, so whenever someone posts up a build it is just a large block of meaningless numbers.

I had to figure it out on my own, and I'm only so-so at it. I can't softcap any of my toons, but I can get their defenses into the late 20s, early 30s. That is good enough so far.

Also, just for you, BRA, I updated my guide with some softcapping advice.

For that, I thank you. Please do not call me BRA, though (as much as I would love to be a booby supporting mechanism).

The hardest part I always found was picking out the most efficient ways to build up defenses. Amongst all the information out there, it is hard to pick up all the nuances that make things work.

Hehe, right, sorry.

In my opinion...min/maxing is all relative.

Some people want the minimum of this and the maximum of that...while others want the minimum of that and the maximum of this.

There is no guide needed for it. Just a knowledge of what certain bonuses IO sets offer and a general idea of what you're looking to build for.