Erratic1

I went Savage/Electric with a Brute on my most recent Savage outing and it is indeed a very active playstyle as you add the +Recharge from Lightning Reflexes to the +Recharge from Blood Frenzy stacks. And like Bio you get a DoT.

A quick couple of thoughts.... Why did you use 2 slots for Perfect Zinger in Lightning Field when full slotting Armageddon would have gotten you 6% Toxic/Psionic Resistance and 10% +Recharge compared to the 2.25% Toxic Resistance you got instead? The Numina's Convalescence: +Regeneration/+Recovery works no matter what power you slot it in, but if you put it with the other Numina's you have in Energize you gain +6% to all your heals. I would swap where Numina and Preventive Medicine are placed. Placing Perfect Zinger enhancements in Power Sink is utterly déclassé but I am going to pretend I did not see it. I would slot a Recharge Reduction in Energize Not going to judge what you built so much as tweak what you have. In any event I strenuously suggest you try it on the Test server to make sure it works how you like. The primary change is Energize is now up for 30s out of every 45s as opposed to 60s. So you go from it being up about 54 % of the time to it being up 67% of the time. It also heals for 162 more health. You also have 19% more +Recharge. There are some other minor changes which I do not think will be noticable.

Recording the demo went straightforward. /demoplay "<name of file>" worked perfectly well and left <name of file> in C:\Games\Homecoming\demos. First tried to do playback by invoking a command line and calling the executable stored in C:\Games\Homecoming\bin\win64\life ala: cityofhereoes.exe -demoplay C:\Games\Homecoming\demos\<name of file> but that did not work. Then I got to wondering how the game launcher handles things. When you launch from Homecoming's launcher, in the bottom right of the button there are ellipses (the three dots). Click on it and a menu pops up with Settings as an option. Click settings and you get a Settings Panel. For me Homecoming was the default one shown but you can click to if it need be. The last line is Extra Launch Parameters. If you put in -demoplay C:\Games\Homecoming\demos\<name of file> the demo you recorded plays. So in theory all you have to do is edit the file accordingly. But I am sneaky. I am wondering if it captures you entering the costume editor. Admittedly you could just record your play to video and grab frames from there (I have done this but the pos gfx card I am using since mine died does not allow me to record diddly). Going to go give demorecord the session a go and see what happens. Edit: Okay, while in demorecord you only see the game world. If you go into the costume editor, the screen goes black for the duration you're in the editor. Still, you can capture action scenes from the and of course edit the recording to show whatever.

Heal and endurance recovery along with a nice way of buffing damage on top of that which Shield provides.

It has been dead easy on my Brute. I cannot imagine it being harder on a Tanker. What makes it so challenging to build or drive?

If you're talking you do not have a slot to spare, cannot afford its endurance cost, and not needing it at level 6, when it first comes available, sure. I am pretty sure my usual habit is to give Active Defense a second slot and double up recharge reduction by 20 even though enhancements at that level will not allow it to be perma. But as soon as that is possible, on autoclick it goes. Yeah, it costs a moderate amount but that is every 2 minutes. Compared to a toggle, that it works out to 10.4 endurance/120 seconds = 0.087 end/sec--hideously cheap. But as you note, the real world consideration is if you can afford it when it fires. However its firing is not a surprise. You can know exactly when it is going off with power countdown. To my mind it is more worth it to pop a blue if need be if things look close than be without. But speaking real world, I have absolutely no memory of endurance failure caused by Active Defense firing or it even being a concern across multiple characters. That bit about 10.4 endurance every 120 seconds means you are infinitely better off slotting endurance reduction in things firing oh so much more often--your attacks. That is, of course, after slotting Stamina for three Endurance Modification enhancements. With Against All Odd doing a reasonable chunk of damage lifting (unless down to your last couple of guys) you can even afford to slot Endurance Reduction earlier than otherwise. I was not planning to need to know, but as stands at level 44 (though I did not do this recently, so it may have occurred somewhere in the late 30s) I dropped Stamina to two slots, with Performance Shifter: Endurance Modification and Performance Shifter: Chance for +Endurance along with Mircale: +Recovery and Numina's Convalescence: Regeneration/Recovery. Honestly, that does not leave her that much better off than 3 slotted Stamina but I am going Energy Mastery with her and along with a dollop of Endurance Discount once when fully IO slotted so things will be fine in the end. But yeah, I do agree endurance is probably the last thing that gets addressed (and that's been true of all my shield characters).

Two level 30 crafted IOs and it should recharge about 4 seconds before it fails, IIRC. Auto-click definitely.

I recently started a Shield/Fire Tanker and it has been one of the smoothest Tanker experiences I have ever hard. Easy to soft cap defenses, had to grab Miracle/Numina/Performance Shifter for endurance but once done, really has been quite nice. With the high defense and the extra damage from Against All Odds, was able to up difficulty settings and grind out xp a bit faster too. One of my early characters on Homecoming was a Rad/Shield scrapper. Endurance was a struggle even using every IO and trick I knew. Nice damage but you will struggle with endurance for a while.

So very much this. Dark Melee "solves" what minor issues Invulnerability has by giving it endurance recovery (additional healing too when you're still at the point in your build where you're taking significant damage).

But will demoedit let me get something like:

Something involving Invulnerability would be my guess. At least, that is what I am working on.

Should have swapped mask too. Then you're alternating black and white from mask, to emblem to gloves to boots. Still may not work for you but it would be less jarring to the eye than just doing the boots.

They were asserting it was bad because you risked getting hit for a lot of damage when defense didn't work. DDR was not on their radar.

Someone asserted at one point SR was bad on Tankers. Wound up making an SR/TW to dispute the claim.

Who knew you could take action screenshots of your characters in the costume editor without the default background? *glances suspiciously at @Jawbreaker* Definitely going to be going that route (though perhaps not exclusively) going forward.

I'm left contemplating an end game cost of 500 million.

Kronos is clingy-needy. Will basically find any gathering of giant robots and try to slip in:

Just gonna make Angelina mad eh?

It will hurt when the blow lands...in seven or eight seconds.

It is not like dropping Blizzard on a group, but I got to wondering about the defensive gains to be had by periodically repositioning. Maybe if I get back to the character in the future (Elec/Stone brute) I will get a chance to explore the idea more.

Do I recall incorrectly? I remember moving slightly with Mudpots and while foes did not struggle to reposition I would have sworn I noticed a delay in them maneuvering to get to me.

Every time I think I have found the, "This will be the iconic outfit" costume for the character, a new idea comes along. I really am pleased with this new costume for my Stj/Inv Brute, Ultrapower:

I am an original Offender, proselytizing the merits of offensively played Defenders from the beginning. I remember street sweeping Brickstown back in the day, well before Defenders got a 30% solo damage boost. I really wish I still had the screenshot of my original Rad/Elec Defender standing in the middle of a bunch of 5th Column as Thunderous Blast is animating. There was once member of the 5th Column leaning back like he could see what was about to occur. If I have moderated at all from back then, I would still advocate fully using your Defenders powers, which include blasts. Truthfully, there is little difference in how I approach playing my Corruptors and Defenders, just a difference in expectations. I am going to buff, I am going to blast. The slight difference is probably one of where I draw my joy from when playing one versus the other--what I am focusing on doing. With the Defender, it is making sure everyone is alive, endurance bars are not critically low, that there is a control free zone for non-melees to operate in, and of course blasting the minds of the bad guys. But doing those things is why I chose Electrical Affinity. On the Corruptor, Kinetics is a well-regarded buff set. Even so, the need for the buffs interrupts what mama has come to do, which is rain some pain on the bad guys. 😁

While I know it has been discussed repeatedly over the years, I do not have any links saved. Still.... The Damage Scale for Defenders is 0.65 (ranged) vs 0.75 for Corruptors. Scourge averages a 30% boost to damage for a Corruptor (variable). Nothing else considered the Corruptor is ahead 1.3 * 0.75/0.65 = 1.5, or 50%. A solo Defender gets damage boosted by 30% so the Corruptor is still up by 1.5/1.3 = 1.1538 or 15.38%. That leaves buff/debuff effectiveness. Taking Siphon Power from Kinetics as an example, for a Defender we are looking at a 25% boost to damage. For the corruptor it is 20%. So the Defender is ahead by 1.25/1.2 = 1.0417 or 4.17%. Factor in the buff advantage for Defender vs Corruptor and you end up with (1.5*1.2)/(1.3*1.25) = 1.1077 or 10.77% damage advantage for the Corruptor. The astute student of Corruptor vs Defender buffs/debuff will note there is some variance in the relative values between Corruptor buffs/debuffs and those of Defenders. In some places the value are a bit above what was indicated above while in other places it is a bit below. It is also the case the Defender damage buff falls off by 10% per team member. True, the Defender gives larger buffs to those team members, but in terms of what is experienced, the Corruptor sees increased damage output over the Defender. As goes the overall team, let's stick with Siphon Power for a moment and consider the impact of 4.17% more damage distributed over 8 team members--8*4.17% = 33.33%. Do note, that is not saying the Defender team is doing 33% more damage but rather you've effectively picked up 33% of another person doing damage. On a 8 member team the Defender is not getting his 30% damage boost and so the Defender/Corruptor damage difference is 1.5*1.2/1.25 = 44%, which is to saw the teams are probably coming out close to the same in terms of overall damage. Of course damage is not everything and the Defender is going to be providing better survivability to the group.

There is always a little envy when not playing Fire watching a Fire blaster go to town. OTOH, let my Water/Kin get a full head of Fulcrum Shift and let loose with Geyser. Its quite satisfying....almost as satisfying as dropping Meteor with a Seismic Blaster.