Linea

Here's a couple of quick passes at an armored build. You'll have to adjust to taste. Oops, wrong primary. Ah, here's one. Pain DP - Alpha 1 - [i25].mxd

The Empath didn't even chip a nail. Runners Suck: Jil was however rather vexed at all the bosses running away like they'd been taking track lessons from Rommy. Without the Runners Cia (Blaster) would have beat them all, and Jil (Empath) would have beat all but Cia (Blaster) and Kate (Scrapper). Here are my top 5 (favorite) characters: (These are NOT mirror builds, so grain of salt, tongue in cheek. All are fully armored Tier 4 IO Incarnate Builds, built for standard Linea Armor instead of damage.) Kate (Kat/Bio scrapper): 9:05 Cia (Water/Atomic Blaster): 9:42 ... Runners Suck! Asja (Kat/Ena Brute): 9:45 Lucy (SD/Radm Tank): 9:45 Jil (Empathy/Fire Defender): 13:14 ... Runners Suck!

Some builds ... EAfn Fire Defender - Alpha 1 - [i26].mxd EAfn Fire Defender - Fourcade 1 - [i26].mxd EAfn Fire Defender - Myshkin 1 - [i26].mxd

Almost any AT can "Tower-Tank". Depending on your team composition and builds, you vary tactics and/or which tower is best to take down first. LR is 75% defense soft-cap while buffed, as opposed to 45% (standard) or 59% (incarnate). Bring maneuvers, bubbles, purple candy, etc. As I recall that's the yellow tower, but you'd need to look it up. The red tower is damage, and is a fairly ridiculous damage buff. Buffed he can dish out 4500+damage, and do so in short order. If he double-hits you it's really gonna hurt, and triple-hit will probably kill even the most heavily armored and buffed squishy. Triple-hits /do/ happen, but rarely. Last but significant is his -End attack. That's the one that gives many otherwise durable builds serious trouble. *end crash* *splat* Kiski (Time/*/Scorpion w Rune/Hybrid/Rune) tanks him face to face solo and is successful 2/3 or more of the time. She prefers the red tower come down first as her SLE defense runs 100+, SLE Resists are capped (at 75%, which means she has ~5k effective hp). She also really prefers to have some +Recovery or +End buffs. ... of course the obvious answer here is to 'Tower-Tank' him.

I'm pretty sure you would be terrified by the answer to that question. ... the forum self-selects to a higher than average strata.

I've done a lot of mirror builds ... That are not perfect exact mirrors. In most cases I create a dozen or more builds to compare and contrast and pick what I feel is best for each. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses. Every set combo is different, so for your particular exact build this may or may not apply. The Brute can be built as either (roughly equal damage to the scrapper) or (roughly equal durability to the tank) at level 50 ... or anywhere in-between the two goals of damage and/or durabilty. That flexibility is an incredible asset. The Brute starts with lets call it average damage, and average mitigation, and can go either way, striving for a scrapper's damage or a tank's durability. The Scrapper starts with damage, and in general strives for more damage, and with rare exception will not be able to match the brutes durability. The Brute starts with lets call it average damage, and average mitigation, and can go either way, striving for a scrapper's damage or a tank's durability. The Tank starts with durability and then spends it's entire life trying to strive toward the brutes damage potential. The tank could also go the other direction and strive for more durability, but in general that direction is over-armor (as opposed to over-kill). Other Points I generally do not recommend resist armors on 75% resist cap ATs I generally only recommend the tank if you want maximum taunt or maximum durability above all else, both of these ARE valid desires and roles. Otherwise brute is "durable enough" and you usually have more damage that makes life more enjoyable solo. I really appreciate a good tank on a team. Professional tanks on a tank frame really are worth their weight in gold plated latinum. But most players will probably enjoy playing the brute more. As a reinforcing note: I really can see and feel the difference it makes to teams on the rare occasion when I do pull out the full tank frame. But I almost always prefer to play the tank-built brute instead (if not the scrapper). The tank has a constant barrage of AoEs and taunts and can juggle an entire room's worth of aggro. The brute can manage about half that. The scrapper is lucky to hold half of half or less, but with most teams that's "just enough". Overall, I probably play the brute the most, as it's the most comfortable combination of taunt, durability, and damage ... even if the tank is a bit more durable with better taunt and the scrapper is a bit more damage. Here are my favorites (stalker, scrapper, brute, tank): StJ Ena WaterSpout Stalker - Alpha T3 - [i25].mxd Kat Bio Scrapper - Alpha 3 ITF - [i25].mxd Kat ENA - Mu 1i - [i25].mxd Rad Kat Tank - Radicat II - Mu 3f - [i25].mxd SD RadM Tank - Alpha 5b - [i25].mxd

I would /love/ to see "Incarnate Radio Contact(s)" (maybe in Khallisti Wharf) utilizing 801 design groups and giving incarnate rewards. .... I've considered doing 801 versions of all the end-game enemy groups in AE... but the limit of 3 AE arcs per account makes it a no-go. There's also the non-trivial time it takes per enemy group as well.

Rommy Running roughly halves your applied dps.* If it's an issue, kill the nictus first, or both separate and kill the nictus first. Then you only have to chase him down for the last kill. I don't think any other AV runs nearly as much as Rommy, this is purely opinion, but !@#$ he knows how to run. You can also have 2-4 people with Envenomed Daggers. Stacked they help much more than most realize. One is meh, depends on the build and your raw dps, but teamed with a few stacked is very nice. *as measured while soloing him +4x8 with my builds. other builds and teams will vary.

FF Water Dark - Soul Drain - Overwatch 1 - [i25].mxd converted to Sonic Blast FF Sonic Dark - Soul Drain - Overwatch 1 - [i25].mxd MRA based defenses, Decent Resists, Extra Offense, ...

Heavily Armored Version ... Adjust levels etc to taste. Poison DP - Beta - [i25].mxd

(old) Cheap Easy mostly SO Builds ... but effective. ... ... then some more expensive (old) variants FF Water - Budget Build 2 - [i26].mxd Traps Water - Budget Build 1 - [i26].mxd FF Water Dark - Soul Drain - Overwatch 1 - [i25].mxd Traps Water - Quarterback 1 - [i25].mxd

The idea of the build was to test resist cap and (almost perma) +self_damage_cap. I soloed a +4x8 ITF with it. Standard Rune/Hybrid/Rune/Demonic/KitchenSink rotation. It plays a lot like a BioArmor scrapper. When you get defense debuffed you WILL die if you don't react and do something; However, with all that resist and absorb you typically DO have time to react. Without the absorb and resist you'd otherwise drop to cascade failure too fast to react. You can get defenses via temps and candy. I probably have a defense based perma-snipe version somewhere, but the +self_damage_cap is lost. And it's not translated to /Ice as ice doesn't have a snipe. This is probably it: Nature Fire - Laoraine 2c - [i25].mxd

I went pure resist build with self +damage ... I built it as Nature/Fire, but Nature/Ice is an easy translation. Nature Ice - Fourcade 1 - [i25].mxd Nature Fire - Fourcade 2td - [i25].mxd

I'd like to see 801 style remakes of all the major villain groups and then see 801 style radio missions that offer incarnate rewards. The obvious downside being, if you aren't on an incarnate team, you might get slaughtered. Other options and avenues would likely reap better return on investment for dev time.

Here's one of my older builds, designed as resist cap self damage cap, not defense based. Being NOT defense based it is much harder to drive than a defense based build, but the damage potential is nice. Nature Water - Fourcade 2 - [i25].mxd

Here are two very old, heavily armored, non-proc builds. (more modern proc builds will have more offense, but also likely less armor. Not that you need /that/ much armor.) The one was intended to be run with Amps, and possible dampeners and base buffs as well. The other is stand-alone. Storm Water Dark Defender - Druidess 2c - [i25].mxd Storm Water Scorpion - Alpha 1 - [i25].mxd

Tanks that can crank out 250+ dps in order to take out a +4 AV solo are not "average" tanks. I've done it, but it's not something I'd recommend to the average player, or even above average player. Tanks that can do that are probably Top 5% or better. I'm aware they are using the extra super difficulty settings only available in TFs, that is why I added "(but with all the toys, temps, and inspirations)". With the toys it's almost anything, without the toys and no deaths, it's a much much smaller subset. I wish there was more content like this, but without the AVs, as the dps-check is the most annoying aspect of this kind of thing.

I've soloed a +4x8 ITF with (almost) everything except a petless mm, (but with all the toys, temps, and inspirations). ... With galacticly wide varying degrees of difficulty, some combinations are simply not at all worth ever trying again, it was entirely too difficult. Emp/ and Tank are two that are right on that line, with kills taking up to an hour ... and you have to kill (or almost kill) that %!@#$^% as many as 6 times ... that's up to 6 hours, not worth it. In the end, the game balance really boils down to the AT modifiers, and then in-AT set balance, and issues with IOs. The former AT-Modifiers are well balanced, and WAI overall. The latter is totally whack, and always has been. Example, the best blast set (multiplied by IOs) can do 3.5x more damage than the worst blast set (also multiplied by IOs). That discrepancy gets even worse if the latter (worst) set does not have IOs nor incarnates or is poorly built. And that's the kind of thing we typically see. It's not Defender vs Corruptor, it's a T4 Corruptor built for damage being compared to a SO defender built for support. OF COURSE it's going to be a whack comparison. But build that defender as a T4 Offender, and it might out perform the Corruptor (when I did this comparison fairly and equally with mirror builds, they came out even with the defender builds a bit easier to build and a bit more flexible).

Empaths can ... But you really have to build for it, and built for it early, and you really only "get there" level 40+. I start my IO builds at level 7 ... most people only IO /after/ they hit 50 and get some incarnates. Alternately, you can do the same with a pair of empaths that buff each other ala "Green Machine" from very early levels. As soon as you have Fortitude and can buff your partner, you swap buffs and become very strong (thanks to your partner). Very much akin to a ranged equivalent of a "regen scrapper". Vanilla Empath, solo, lower levels, on SOs only, you're going to need to be a very advanced player to get there. It's been done, back on live years ago even, but it is very difficult. I'd probably recommend Emp/Energy for that, as the KB used correctly is very powerful. Solo Defender, there are many many other sets that are either easier to drive, or better end results. Empaths can do it, but it's more difficult. Teamed, there's absolutely no reason a defender (Including Empaths), level 40+, can't be contributing significant damage to the team, even blaster equivalent damage.

Here's how I did Nature/ armored self damage cap. It's an i25 build (resist) armored build, so not only could it be updated it could also be shifted to more damage as well.Nature Fire - Fourcade 2td - [i25].mxd I did a defense version with a less damage Nature Fire - Laoraine 2c - [i25].mxd never tried a more hybrid version like yours.

Dang! Gonna be missed.

/Ena does well, but you will want to layer on Rune/Hybrid/Rune to buffer your resists, and you need to stack as much energy drain +defense as you can due to psionic ... and you may from time to time need a small purple or medium purple primarily to further shore up psionic. You can also use the various Psionic Temp armors as supplement. The psionic isn't as big an issue as it is often made out to be. Yes Psi can kill you, but it also comes in packets half the size and half the frequency of other damage types (with the exception of Mr G's Arc). Kat ENA - Mu 1i - [i25].mxd

* Tactics and Ageless Radial +Special will put a big dent in Arachnos annoyance factor, so long as the rest of your build is otherwise solid. One or the other helps, both together are exponentially better. If you still have issues you can layer on Base Buffs (+recovery, +end_drain_resist, +perception), and even amps if you're still desperate after all that. On builds weak to them, you can also make sure to carry 4+ yellow (any size) to act as psuedo-tactics, 8+ medium purple (or larger, or dual) to act as psuedo-ddr. * Every build is different, this is the most generalized advice Here are three of my favorites. Kat Bio Scrapper - Alpha 3 ITF - [i25].mxd Time Fire - Quarterback 2d - [i26].mxd Water Atomic - Ciaraine 2b - [i25].mxd And here are some others that should be more pointedly useful: Rad Kat Tank - Radicat II - Mu 3f - [i25].mxd Fortunata - Isabella - Rev 8i (Psi-Tank) - [i25].mxd Huntsman - Agent Seventy Seven - Malfactor 2n - [i25].mxd

icap is 59%. the majority of -ddr comes from M/SL sources (not all, but most). For the very high-end content you want an effetive buffer of 20+ defense (a single hit can debuff 20+), and you want at least moderate resists to give you a reaction time buffer. I use the above build to solo 801.5 and 801.f +4x8 very very comfortably, with the only thing more durable being an SD/RadM tank. (Solo, +4x8, 801.5 or higher, teamed with any external buffs at all things will change, lower difficulty content and things change.) This is the build that demonstrates why /Ena hasn't been ported to tanks 'yet'. I was soloing 50+1x8 Rikti at level 13ish. Not purposefully, but it happened so I just rolled with it, was slightly surprised, then dug in for a good fight. Actual in-combat numbers for the build are insane ... Full Tier 4 Incarnate, Rune/Hybrid/Rune, Demonic, and all the other goodies ... DDR can still be an issue, and you can still cascade fail, at least minimal caution should be used around debuff heavy mobs. You can absolutely still die, even with this build, especially in 801 content. (but you could probably afk council, and other easy content) there's another post somewhere with even more info:

I recommend: /EnA (Defense, Any AT), Rad (Resist-Cap, Brute and Tank), /Bio (Heal-Armor, Any AT) . . Defense Alternate for tanks: SD/ and Inv/ Kat ENA - Mu 1i - [i25].mxd Inv RadM - Prototype E 7c - [i25].mxd Kat Bio Scrapper - Alpha 3 ITF - [i25].mxd Rad Kat Tank - Radicat II - Mu 3f - [i25].mxd SD RadM Tank - Alpha 5b - [i25].mxd