oedipus_tex

Hiya, I'm gonna answer each question 1:1. Other players probably have additional feedback. Gather buff powers need to be looked at if they are consistent. From what I know, they mostly are. "Gather Powers" is an informal way to classify powers that have a PBAoE effect and a Recharge implies you fire them when a bunch of people are close by to maximize the effect, because the Recharge time is a limitation. Example powers: Empathy Recovery Aura Regen Aura Radiation Accelerate Metabolism Nature Regrowth Wild Bastion Overgrowth Time Farsight Chrono Shift Dark (Controller only) Fade Note that of these examples, Farsight is one of the few (only? I didn't check all the ones in Nature) "Gather Power" with a Recharge that generously runs into its duration. Time characters are not under any strong pressure to recast Farsight before it drops. On simple enhancements the effect drops right about when it recharges. On IOed builds it recharges about 60 seconds before expiring and you could flatten a few spawns without stopping to refresh it. Ally only powers do they make sense with the current state of the game? If made to Gather buff style would those numbers need adjustment? This is a complex topic and I know a lot of other players will want to weigh in. There are five main power sets with a stake in this discussion: Force Field Sonic Resonance Cold Domination Thermal Empathy But even powersets like Storm. Time, and Poison have ally-only buffs. My general feeling right now is that leaving most of these powers ally-only will save you the most headaches. The ally-buff powers were designed to be very strong, so any ability to self cast them will mess with Sentinel balance. Also, on Masterminds and Controllers, those buffs can often be placed on pets. So there's a lot to talk about. Damage boosting damage resistance granting powers needs to be fixed. This is a problem not unique to Fade. Fade is the only example that comes to mind right away. Most other powers (e.g. Cold Domination's shields) are correctly flagged to prevent the bug. Now, you guys could decide to fix the system that writes Damage bonuses over to Resistance powers. I have no idea how complex that would be. You could then unflag the Cold shields and other powers so that Power Boost works. It seems like a lot of work though. I know nothing about the volume of work required to get stuff done. You'd also face a lot of mad Force Fielders since the ability to Power Boost shields has long been FF's main leg up on Cold. 🙂 Does having this defensive value or if other ally only powers now affect caster if those were to change would that offer too much imbalance to ATs with access to support sets? Again looking at this from the lense that Armor sets can cap their defenses easily. For this I think you should look at the armor values for Defenders and Controllers within set. For Defenders a top-level Defense shield provides 13.3% Defense (Force Field Generator). An average one (Arctic Fog) provides about +5. Dispersion Bubble is in the middle with +10. Treat these values how you would treat an armor set for any other AT. If a set is offering long-term Defense higher than about 13%, it's extremely high. React to this like you would if you saw a Tanker or Sentinel armor significantly above normal values.

Good observations. I do think Farsight should still be able to benefit from its own +Defense buff and that part not changed. +12.5% Defense is extremely good, but not necessarily unreasonable. It's the Power Boost part that I think needs review, because it trips over what is reasonable for the personal Defense for a Defender/Controller/MM. Farsight belongs to a class of powers you might call "Gather Powers." These are the powers that some teammates will post ***GATHER FOR XXXX POWER**** and most of the team ignores them 🙂. Examples exist in Radiation and Empathy. Time has 2: Farsight and Chrono Shift. Gather Powers typically affect the caster and all teammates. In that sense, Farsight is not out of alignment. It's a gather power that provides defense instead of regen, recovery, etc. Chrono Shift benefits from Power Boost from what I can remember (I can look into this). The reason I haven't bothered to look too closely though is that for the most part Power Boosted endurance, healing, etc, doesn't have an outsized impact. The system for which it has an outsize impact is Defense. There are a lot of reasons for this. But the biggest is that when Power Boost multiplies a powers effect it ignores the schedule of enhancements. Defense enhancements are Schedule B (25.5%). Endurance Modification is Schedule A (42.4). Power Boost multiplies them both by the same amount. So any time you can Power Boost a Defense power the multipier shoots the Defense numbers far higher than you could achieve with enhancements or gathering up a bunch of other Defense powers. It basically gives you a second copy of the power. The original general arrangement was that Power Boost was allowed for a Defense power on 2 major conditions: It was fine with toggles (Dispersion Bubble, Force Field Generator) because it was temporary. It was fine with ally or pet buff powers (Deflection Shield, Fortitude) because it was always the role of Defenders, Controllers, and Masterminds to provide higher value Defense to teammates and pets than to themselves. This balanced Power Boost as a choice versus a more 'selfish' power selection. There were originally few instances of defense buffs that affect the caster outside of armor toggles. Even Dispersion Bubble is basically a form of armor toggle that hits an area instead of just the owner. Other than Vengeance, the earliest examples of such a power was Link Minds (Dominator Psi APP), a derivative of Mind Link (Arachnos Widow). Dominators have 4 sets with Power Boost effects so Link Minds was specifically designed not to be susceptible to external effects. That's the power I'd look to in your balancing.

First of all I want to apologize to anyone if it seems like I've been short with you. I am enjoying this discussion. I am assuming everyone participating is making their arguments based on good faith efforts. I also wanted to talk a little about Fade, since so much of the conversation already addresses Farsight. As mentioned previously, Fade is bugged. The Resistance of the power receives buffs from +Damage. In normal play you probably wouldn't notice this too much, because the developers lucked out by giving Fade to Controllers but not Defenders. Controllers don't get a lot of +Damage in their primaries (no Aim/Build Up) and Power Boost comes in a pool with no +Damage powers. So far so gooduntil you eat a lot of Reds or team up with Kinetics. If you should find yourself inside a Fulcrum Shift things get interesting. After level 20, Controller Damage caps at +400%. Fade has 9.4% Slash and Lethal Resistance. So we get 9.4 x 4 = 37.6 Slash/Lethal resistance. I get a little confused when trying to figure out how the bug will affect Fade if Fade is slotted for Resist. I am not sure where the multiplier looks for a value to multiply. But a safe guess is that Fade will provide +50% or so Resistance. 😉 Of course, a Dark Affinity Controller probably doesn't spend much time at Damage Cap. The developers seriously dodged a bullet here. If Fade had been available to Defenders, Defender could pop Aim for +60% global damage with a high chance of a Build Up proc adding +100% more. Then Power Boost for double defenses, then cast a version of Fade with both Defender-strength Defense and Resistance. By the way, I never bothered to check because I figured it would be ridiculous for the power to have Defense Debuff Resistance, but it turns out Fade does. Fade provides 35% DDR at level 50. 😄

What gooses and what ganders? 😉 Force Field cannot self cast its shields. It doesn't just follow the rule. It set the rule. Power Boost and its effect on Force Field isn't an accident, it was the result of (at the time) heated debate. I did manage to think of two additional exceptions to the basic rule though. I am not 100% sure these work with Power Boost, but they might: Vengeance. Requires a dead teammate and breaks every rule of everything. Probably not worth taking Power Boost just to use when someone dies. 300 second cooldown and 120 second duration. Technically perma-able, but, uh.... 🙂 Unleash Potential. 600 second cooldown and 60 second duration. 600/4 = 150 second Recharge under perfect conditions with maxed out +400% Recharge. More likely recharge is around +200% on a finished build, so around a 200 second recharge or so. Neither has the same signature as Farsight though. Farsight has a 240 recharge with a 120 duration. Also requires no dead people to cast.

Do you mean with IOs and so on? Yes, those avenues exist. I've spent a lot of time making builds to eke out various advantages. It's fun because its challenging on other sets. Farsight is not challenging. 3-4 powers, 2 IOs. No armor set exists with those values because it destroys the competition. While there's more to consider to a buff set than just that, that's before we've even brought in the other 8 powers in the set, or the fact that these armor values are carrying over to other players. I don't think its fair to say that Defense just doesn't matter though because you can get it from IOs. People spend a lot of time figuring out combinations of IOs to get Defense. Just not with Time Manipulation because it hands it to you without investment or effort.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand your question. Which many avenues do you mean? There are only two avenues for double stacking a +12.5% Defense power (~+9% on Controllers), Fade and Farsight. The vast majority of Defense powers eligible for Power Boost are either: Toggles Only affect players other than the caster Fade has to be fixed anyway. Farsight naturally should follow it.

If Time Manipulation was an armor set availlable to Sentinels, Scrappers, Stalkers, etc and they also had access to Power Boost, and that power was giving +24% Defense to all positions for 120 seconds perma, there would be no discussion. The power would be fixed and we would move on. The only reason this is even a debate is because the power appears in a buff set. The rules for buff sets are slightly more nebulous. But, with 2 exceptions added very late in the game, they followed the basic rule that powers do not grant above a certain threshold of Defense to the caster or else they turn into Tank Mages. The rule can be broken only for powers that do not affect caster (bubbles, ice shields, thermal shields, and so on.) Those 2 exceptions are Farsight (being discussed) and Fade (known to be bugged). Fade has to be fixed anyway. Fix Farsight along with it. I just want to marvel that that was the response to a build showing how, with 2 IOs and 7 powers (could have done it in 6 honestly but I wanted to explore the S/L Resistance portion) you can come within 6 points of incarnate cap to all positions. Is there a Sentinel armor set that is also doing this? This is not a sarcastic question. I'm just wondering if "soft capped to everything before we even get to the other 8 powers in the set" is a standard for an Armor set I've not explored yet.

If that's true then Force Field and Cold Domination should not be blocked from self casting their shields, and Empathy should be allowed to self cast Fortitude. Cold Dom would come in below Power Boosted Farsight and Empathy would about tie it (but gain+30% Damage). But that's a not a game philosophy I can agree with. The Defender class is not supposed to be a Sentinel that also happens to have team-wide buffs. This was a balance that was carefully maintained. There is a set for self buffs called 'Armor' and it follows certain restrictions in order to keep the game fun and interesting. I happen to think the buffs should be treated with the same care and serious debate that armor and melee/blast sets get. I really hope we are not in the mindset now that nothing can be debated because everything is trivial.

RE: Incarnate cap. Challenge accepted. Here's a template with base 53.3 Defense to all positions when Power Boosted Farsight is added to the mix. Find 6 Defense to each remaining position and you're capped in incarnate content. This is with no sets added yet, only the 2 fairly standard +3 Defense IOs mostly builds for any character will use. Notice that even without Power Boost Farsight is incredibly powerful. Defenders get fantastic Defense modifiers so their powers add up quickly. The issue is the character shouldn't be allowed to have access to Farsight's +12.4% twice. Its worth way more Defense than any other option available in the game. If Farsight was the only good power in Time I could look away, but look at this: Here's the portion of that coming from just Power Boost + Farsight if you ignored all other Defense powers and just took the +Defense IOs. So how soon can Cold Domination and Force Field start self-casting their shields? 🙂

I hope I don't sound like I'm talking down to you. Tone is hard to read on the forums. I assume all of us on this forum are posting in good faith because we love this game and want to see the best for it, even if our philosophies of what is "best" differ. So whatever differences in opinion we may have I hope the conversation remains friendly. This is a serious question. Do you not agree that a power set where you can start your build with just 4 powers in Mids and be soft capped to all positions and elements trivializes other sets? If we were talking about just Ranged defense or something I could see maybe not flagging it as an outlier. But ALL positions and elements? My mention above of a being able to cap to Ranged defense with 4 powers was rhetorical. There is no such set. The closest any set can come to Time + Power Boost is Traps. Traps can get very good defense. With work, it can even soft cap to most positions. But it requires at least some investment in the build, because after Force Field Generator the next highest Defense power I can access is going to be Weave, with just +5%. If Power Boosted Farsight is ok they should just let me summon 2 Force Field Generators because other than the 2% difference in Defense its the same thing.

Good question. IMO they shouldn't do this because Power Boost's interaction with Fortitude (Empathy) and especially Deflection Shield (Force Field) was a selling point for these sets. Like, the only reason Force Field players haven't mutinied is that Power Boosted Force Fields are a thing. On an iTrial a Force Fielder can Power Boost his or her Force Fields and the whole team has good defense. Other than AoE mezz protection Force Field brings little else to an iTrial. Unrelated notes below. 🙂 Note Time and Dark can also power boost + shield a league, just with somewhat less certainity they'll hit as many team members. Unlike Force Field though at least they have other stuff they can do. FYI part of the reason Force Field and other set's shields were made into AoEs is there was a period of time where PBAoE buffs could buff a league and a Force Fielder had to shield each teammate one by one. In terms of personal defense, the real attraction of Fade and Farsight, Force Fielders routinely have less Defense than Time characters. With Power Boosted Farsight in play, they have about 14% less total personal Defense. Force Field relies pretty heavily on Power Bosot to remain relevant. So the fact that it's that specific power that gives Time Manipulation so much more Defense rubs salt in the wound. I suppose you could argue that Farsight + Power Boost is 2 powers where Dispersion Bubble is just 1, but the next closest power the Force Fielder can grab for +Defense is Weave which only adds +5% or Manuevers adds +3.5%. Power Boost adds 12.4% to Farsight, more than Weave + Combat Jumping + Manuevers + Hover (ie all the toggles the Force Fielder can grab). Oh, and by the way--Time can also grab Weave. So.... Next, Force Field's defense is a toggle, so it can be detoggled by running low on endurance or mezzed. Farsight's defense is there whether you are held, slept, sapped, whatever. Because Farsight is a power that also affects teams, sometimes people lose sight of the fact that this power is viewed by most not as a team buff but a personal armor. Defenders and Controllers do look at those numbers on their builds. The fact that Farsight also happens to hit the rest of the team is secondary to its

A clickie is better than a toggle. If it was a toggle we wouldn't be having this discussion because Power Boost's behavior with toggles is established. Farsight is a clickable with 120 second duration that can be made perma without set bonuses or Hasten. On a "good" build it recharges in 60 seconds. Once it is up it can not be detoggled by endurance drain or mezz. If you know how to push buttons, you can be soft capped to all positions. +12.5% to all positions is already amazing. Allowing a character to have 2 copies of this power (this is what Power Boost does) pushes it past the extreme.

Farsight's impact on the rest of the team is not a concern for me. It's a PBAoE and realistically hitting the whole team with it all of the time isn't feasible. In that sense it's less reliable than Force Field's shield buffs. It's the personal armor numbers that make Farsight + Power Boost inappropriate. If the fix were super complex I'd understand arguments about spending time fixing other sets. This one is front and center and obvious. There is a nearly identical power in the game that already has the fix applied. You should not be able to soft cap to all positions and elements with just 4 powers. Y'all. Stop it. If an armor set was released with those values we'd never let stop talking about it. We haven't even discussed finished builds. You can soft cap with 4 powers. Either numbers don't matter at all or that is broken. The reason it is broken is obvious and staring us in the face, so please flip the switch and lets get back to balancing more challenging stuff. 🙂

The one argument for Mesmerize is it's a Mag 3.5 Sleep, so on a Controller it will instantly Sleep a Boss. This will detoggle them too. I think it might even sleep AVs too? It's been ages since I played a Mind Controller. On perma-Dominators, yeah always skip it though, because you can just Sleep stuff with Mass Hypnosis.

Well the thread is called "buff Force Fields." 🙂 Some version of it has existed every day almost since the game started, discussing more or less the same things.. I don't happen to think anything I've suggested strays wildly outside of the realm of what a Force Field is.

The rule typically is that if a power has enhanceable Resistance, it is not eligible for Power Boost. That should have ruled Fade out to avoid the +Damage bug. I think you used to be able to see the flag on the old City of Date site. I don't know where you can see it now. It doesn't show in Mids, and powers like the Cold shields will appear to benefit from Power Boost when you use the tool, they just wont work in game. One of the greatest troll moves by the devs of all time was Dominator Link Minds: Yep, they stuck 1.7% Psi Resist in there just so they could justify not letting you Power Boost it (Four Dominator sets have access to a Power Boost-like power so this was at the forefront of their mind). Link Minds is a clickable AoE +Defense +ToHit power that is basically the forefather of Farsight.

I feel like I've posted a lot on this topic already, but there's something else I should mention. If Time Manipulation gets to keep Power Boosted Farsight, Cold Domination Defenders should be allowed to self-cast their shields. They would actually have less total Defense than a Power Boosted Time character. 15% from Shields + 5% from Arctic Fog = 20% Total defense So they are 4 points shy of the Time character, except when it comes to Psi defense. They only have 5% Psi defense compared to the Time character's 24. So, how about Force Field? If Force Field couldn't use Power Boost, but could self cast it's shields, that character would 25% Defense, almost identical to what Farsight + Power Boost is providing. I don't know how many other ways to show how overpowered Power Boostable Farsight is.

Maybe the reason some of us feel more strongly about Power Boost and shield powers is this topic came up about once a week on the old forums when discussing Controller and Defender builds. Defenders did not originally have Power Boost, they had Power Build Up. Controllers got Power Boost first. Controllers could cast Power Boosted Force Fields, and this was the source of minor controversy, because a Controller could technically out-defense a Defender and soft-cap a team, "bypassing" the Defender's supposed better values. This was back when you had to cast shields player-by-player, so it was an art to give a whole team Power Boosted shields. People used to discuss strategies to do it efficiently and plan macros around it (I do not miss these days). When Cold Domination came around to Defenders and later Controllers, many people called it the "better than Force-Field-Force-Field set." It had a big bubble even if the graphic didn't look one (Arctic Fog, +5% Defense), and it had shields with identical values to Force Fields's, so on its own it was mostly better sans the mezz protection. The one thing Cold Domination couldn't do? Power Boost those shields. And that led to what felt like a nearly daily discussion about how the Resistance component in Cold Dom's shields meant Power Boost couldn't work, and how this was the one thing that "saved" the Force Field set. You couldn't self cast your Force Fields, because that would be overpowered. But at least Power Boosted Force Fields gave the set a sort of purpose. That's more or less its only purpose to this day, its association with the Power Boost power. The other, inevitable discussion was how Power Boost works on toggles. Toggles constantly recast themselves. So, if you Power Boost with an eligible toggle active, Defense will increase, but only for the duration of Power Boost. This could allow a Force Field Defender to achieve spurts of greatness. Ok, not really. But it was considered okay, because it was short lived. About once a week someone would post a build with Power Boost accidentally turned on, thinking they had soft capped to all positions with ease, and we'd have to explain that they needed to turn Power Boost off to see the real effect it would have. It's worth mentioning Traps. Power Boosting a Force Field Generator before casting it does not create a generator with +26.38% defense. It will cause the Generator to have that defense value for the duration of Power Boost. From what I understand this was done intentionally, and thank heavens. With Time Manipulation though, you finally see that effect for real. What's so funny, thinking about the history of the game, is how we used to talk about IOing Storm and Cold and say that starting with a base Defense of 5% was "huge for reaching the soft cap." That was years before a number like +24 was thought possible.

In fairness, I think the argument that Force Field deserves something more is that we've gone around and around and around and around debating these same topics for almost 17 years now, and still the set is almost universally panned. What it was designed to do is not something that translates well into the mechanics of this game. Single target knockback without damage, intangiility, a version of Phase Shift with the graphic of a bubble, and whatever Repulsion Bomb is supposed to be (a control? an attack? it's bad at both) just aren't good. No amount of preserving them over the past nearly 2 decades has made them good. I remember when Repulsion Bomb was turned from the original complete trash version to just the so-so trash we have now. The original power was so terrible it almost defies description. It was an ally-cast buff that knocked enemies away from your teammate. Like a one-pulse Repel. It had the same 3.07 second animation it has now. I wish we had archived copies of the forums back then, because, believe it or not, people attacked the developers for "betraying the original vision of Force Field" by taking away the ally-cast feature. IMO after 17 years its plain that the original version of Force Field never materialized because the game it was designed for never existed. Force Field's powers are not good. So it relies on big defense bubbles and 3 (EDIT: Sorry, 2. I was thinking of Sonic Resonance) of its powers can't even use IOs because every time it comes up the discussion turns to preserving the original vision instead of finally doing what it takes to fix this set. Which, among other things, means allowing some of its worst powers to actually slot some IOs.

Sentinels were supposed to be given better totals than Defenders, which you can see with a spreadsheet of the powers. Here are the personal defense capabilities of the Defender powers when Power Boost is removed from the equation, in order from best to worst: Traps: +13.3% to all Time: +12.5% to all Force Field: +10% to all Dark Miasma (Defender version): +5% to all Cold: +5% to all Storm: +5% to all There's an obvious pattern in the values. Time only significantly stands out from the curve when Power Boost comes into the equation. It becomes +24.8%. The others also double in effectiveness, but only for the duration of Power Boost, which was considered a fair trade off. I personally think Time should fall between Force Field and Dark/Cold/Storm, at around +8%. That probably won't happen. But it shouldn't provide +24.8%. 😮 No power should be doing that.

I personally read "Absorb" as a layer of "whatever" that has to be cut through before you can damage the person underneath it. That's why on the health bar it's a different color and why it's different from +Max HP, which otherwise does the same thing, with one exception. You can't use "Heal" powers to recover lost Absorption. Heals heal the character. Absorption adds a layer of something-other-than-the-character. What that "something" is could be virtually anything.

On the left below is a Super Reflexes Sentinel who has taken all of his or her armor powers. You must take many powers to get here. On the right is a Time Manipulation Defender with just Farsight and Power Boost. Powers that boost the caster's personal defense for a long period like Farsight should not benefit from Power Boost. Check out that +ToHit for the LOLs while you're at it. Yep, that's what would happen for 120 seconds to Tactics if Tactics were a cast power and not a toggle. Put a Kismet in there and you have +30% ToHit. Then just slot pure procs/damage in every power because you don't need Accuracy.* 😉 (*EDIT: To clarify, you don't need Accuracy for up to +1s or +2s or so. For+4s you need some, but hopefully you grab it from global Accuracy so you can still bypass slotting any actual Accuracy in the powers and can favor procs.)

It does make me wonder what values people think Sentinel armors should have if Defender Time Manipulation with Power Boost is okay. 😄 Time Manipulation is like if you had a Super Reflexes Sentinel but with elemental and Psi Defense too, with Fire Armor's heal, and +50% global recharge instead of +20%, and all of that affected everyone within 25ft and also the armor owner was soft capped to everything. With a -ToHit aura as a cherry on the cake. At least nerf the power boost portion. It's way too far over the top. Saying this as someone who loves the set and would still use it. Just make it reasonable. I haven't even mentioned yet how Power Boosted Farsight provides so much +ToHit that with a Kismet IO you don't need accuracy in any of your blast powers against most +4 enemies.

Hi all, I recently got Dark/Time to level 50. I'm hoping for some feedback on anything I missed. A specific build goal was to keep Wall of Force in the build. I really like its animation, recharge, and how it blends well with Fearsome Stare >> Wall of Force >> Energy Torrent. The power is a surprisingly wide 90 degrees, so altho it does less damage than Torrent, it recharges faster and hits a much wider area. (Full disclosure: I'm currently in the suggestions forum arguing that Power Boosted Farsight should not be a thing. While it is tho, I plan to take full advantage/abuse of it.) I took the Intuition Radial Paragon. This provides Hold, Damage, Slow Movement (wasted on this build), Defense Debuff, To Hit Debuff, and Range Power Boosted Farsight gives 22.9% ToHit, which, combined with +6% Kismet looks like enough to slot zero accuracy in most powers and still hit +4s. I hope my math is correct on these. Because I am already getting +33% Damage from the Alpha slot, a single slot of additional damage brings up the power's damage numbers. I slotted a Damage/Range in cones where possible to make the cones huge. The alpha does not seem to increase the cones size of Wall of Force in Mids. I need to see in game if it resizes the cone appropriately. The final cone size should be close to 50ft This is the only build I have ever skipped the 6th slot in Coercive Persuasion or Will of the Controller. However I just dont think they are useful here. Ranged defense when Farsight is Power Boosted is 41.5% and this build is loaded with (Power Boosted) -ToHit. It just seems much wiser for the average situation to sit just under the soft cap and get more damage procs. I took Conserve Power instead of Power Blast, so the build's overall single target damage is a bit below where it could be. Project Will is my "better than nothing" alternative. It animates slower and does less damage. But, it unlocks Wall of Force. I've never tried procced out Weaken Resolve before. This will be an interesting experiment. Just based on what I've seen in some other powers it should deliver a decent punch with 3 procs and a chance for 20% resist. Clarion is definitely the Destiny slot for this. Just need to decide whether to take the full-time mezz protection one, or the force multiplier one for even more outrageous -ToHit. I welcome your feedback. Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Late Fee: Level 50 Magic Controller Primary Power Set: Darkness Control Secondary Power Set: Time Manipulation Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Force of Will Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Speed Ancillary Pool: Primal Forces Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Dark Grasp -- Dmg-I(A), CldSns-%Dam(3), GhsWdwEmb-Dam%(3), GldNet-Dam%(5), UnbCns-Dam%(5), NrnSht-Dam%(7) Level 1: Time Crawl -- ImpSwf-Dam%(A) Level 2: Living Shadows -- PstBls-Dam%(A), TraoftheH-Dam%(7), CldSns-%Dam(9), PstBls-Dmg/Rng(9), SprWiloft-Rchg/Dmg%(50) Level 4: Temporal Mending -- Heal-I(A) Level 6: Possess -- CrcPrs-Conf%(A), CrcPrs-Conf/EndRdx(13), CrcPrs-Conf(15), CrcPrs-Conf/Rchg(15), CrcPrs-Acc/Conf/Rchg(17) Level 8: Fearsome Stare -- CldSns-ToHitDeb(A), CldSns-Acc/ToHitDeb(17), CldSns-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(19), GlmoftheA-Dam%(19), CldSns-%Dam(21), SprOvrPrs-Rchg/Energy Font(21) Level 10: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 12: Heart of Darkness -- SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear(A), SprWiloft-Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/Rchg(23), SprWiloft-EndRdx/Rchg(23), SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx(25), SprWiloft-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx/Rchg(25) Level 14: Weaken Resolve -- ShlBrk-%Dam(A), AchHee-ResDeb%(27), CldSns-%Dam(27), TchofLadG-%Dam(29) Level 16: Project Will -- Apc-Dmg(A), Apc-Dmg/Rchg(29), Apc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Apc-Acc/Rchg(31), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(31), Apc-Dam%(33) Level 18: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(33), Rct-ResDam%(33), Ksm-ToHit+(34) Level 20: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 22: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ResDam-I(34) Level 24: Wall of Force -- FrcFdb-Rechg%(A), PstBls-Dam%(34), ExpStr-Dam%(36), Rgn-Dmg(36), PstBls-Dmg/Rng(36) Level 26: Shadow Field -- UnbCns-EndRdx/Hold(A), UnbCns-Acc/Rchg(37), UnbCns-Acc/Hold/Rchg(37), UnbCns-Hold/Rchg(37), UnbCns-Hold(39) Level 28: Farsight -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg(39), LucoftheG-Def(39), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(40) Level 30: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(40), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(40) Level 32: Umbra Beast -- ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(42), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(42), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(42), SlbAll-Build%(43), OvrFrc-Dam/KB(43) Level 35: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(43) Level 38: Chrono Shift -- PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(A), EffAdp-EndMod/Rchg(45), EffAdp-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(45) Level 41: Temp Invulnerability -- UnbGrd-Max HP%(A), GldArm-3defTpProc(45), GldArm-End/Res(46), GldArm-ResDam(46) Level 44: Energy Torrent -- FrcFdb-Rechg%(A), PstBls-Dmg/EndRdx(46), PstBls-Dmg/Rng(48), PstBls-Dmg/Rchg(48), PstBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), PstBls-Dam%(50) Level 47: Power Boost -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 49: Slowed Response -- AchHee-ResDeb%(A), TchofLadG-%Dam(50) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Containment Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(11) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), PrfShf-End%(11), EndMod-I(13) Level 50: Intuition Radial Paragon ------------ ------------ Set Bonus Totals: 15% DamageBuff(Smashing) 15% DamageBuff(Lethal) 15% DamageBuff(Fire) 15% DamageBuff(Cold) 15% DamageBuff(Energy) 15% DamageBuff(Negative) 15% DamageBuff(Toxic) 15% DamageBuff(Psionic) 6% Defense(Melee) 6% Defense(Smashing) 6% Defense(Lethal) 6% Defense(Fire) 6% Defense(Cold) 6% Defense(Energy) 6% Defense(Negative) 11% Defense(Psionic) 6% Defense(Ranged) 6% Defense(AoE) 2.25% Max End 48% Enhancement(Accuracy) 4% Enhancement(Stunned) 4% Enhancement(Held) 4.4% Enhancement(Terrorized) 8% Enhancement(Immobilized) 81.25% Enhancement(RechargeTime) 8% Enhancement(Confused) 8% Enhancement(Sleep) 141.2 HP (13.88%) HitPoints Knockback (Mag -3) Knockup (Mag -3) MezResist(Confused) 20% MezResist(Held) 20% MezResist(Immobilized) 20% MezResist(Sleep) 20% MezResist(Stunned) 20% MezResist(Terrorized) 20% MezResist(Teleport) 100% (20% chance) 18% (0.3 End/sec) Recovery 36% (1.53 HP/sec) Regeneration 8% Resistance(Smashing) 16.25% Resistance(Fire) 16.25% Resistance(Cold) 11.75% Resistance(Energy) 11.75% Resistance(Negative) 8% Resistance(Toxic) 8% Resistance(Psionic) 8% Resistance(Lethal)

Yes, but those are IOs and incarnates. This is a powerset perma capping to all positions and elements before even getting to IOs or incarnates. See the template posted earlier in the thread. Then you get to pile incarnates and IOs on top of that. Having spent only four powers to get there. There really isn't much of a strategy here. It's just the game handing you everything. I'll allow that some powersets push extreme. Fulcrum Shift in Kinetics for example. This particular one though really stands out because this discussion was had so many times over the years about self-cast powers and Power Boost. I was there when Time Manipulation and Dark Affinity came out, and this has always felt like an oversight rather than a deliberate decision. Especially the bug in Fade.