Major_Decoy

You can get to 44.9% defense by level 19 if you use 3 20+5 Defense IOs in every passive and four in the toggles (including Combat Jumping).

The trick is "Without maneuvers or weave" And no, it doesn't need IOs. It does need combat jumping or hover. Edit: While it looks like you get all the powers you need by level 18, if I'm counting right, you don't have all the slots you need for it until level 23.

No, it doesn't. It does get rid of Lucky, but it does so (somewhat unfortunately) by rolling the passive AoE into Evasion, so you get absolutely no AoE defense from the set until level 35.

I seem to recall the team here stating that they didn't want to do anything like Master Brawler ever again. I kind of like the Reaction Time idea just because I've never been fond of having Elude as a taunt aura.

That is not true of Spines, Ice Melee, War Mace, or Titan Weapons. Super Strength is not the sole exception. Edit: But to be fair, at launch, Knock-out blow (and War Mace Clobber) were not high damage attacks, they were controls. Super Strength's highest damage attacks were Haymaker and Hurl. I say switch Knock-out Blow with Haymaker. Also, give Hurl the same damage as Knock-out blow and you'll get more people taking it again.

As I recall, that was the justification of adding the damage resistance in the first place.

I understand the argument you're making, but I would not want to trade Knock-out blow and Foot Stomp's positions. When soloing, I find having a single high damage attack much more useful than an AoE. Also, if you slot 6 Rage with Adjusted Targeting and you get about 50% global recharge (so, five purple sets or four purples sets and one Panacea) you can make Rage permanent at level 14.

We might not need run speed bonuses, but it's definitely thematic for a set named after Synapse and for people who skip travel powers in favor of ninja run or beast run, the run speed bonus is actually appreciated.

It's not a nomenclature I've used before, and it kind of makes sense, but it lends itself to constructions like "I ran out of end and my underwear dropped."

I tend to turn off toggles on my Radiation tank when I'm not in combat because the noises are annoying. I've only run into combat without remembering to turn them back on once.

It isn't, but Mids has been applying it as a global proc and that apparently has been misleading people.

Well, no. I mean. I'll often turn of leadership powers when solo, or Oppressive Gloom. Super Jump definitely gets turned off during combat.

I like the post apocalyptic belt for gardeners.

Sure it is. My Plant/Nature controller is a tiny hydroponic garden.

I understand there are different methods of dealing with paragon protectors and moment of glory. I was not suggesting that there was only one to deal with them. My purpose was to take one example where having the power as a proc and not auto-hit might cause a significant change. I kind of think it's an edge case, but it was something I was thinking about. I was making a suggestion that would improve my enjoyment while trying to maintain existing playstyles. That's why I didn't suggest a location based toggle or a toggle that targeted other players. And I fundamentally disagree with your assessment of "Well, you should just take all these other powers and use this other slotting"

That's fair. Would it be over-powered if the toggle did both? An Auto-hit PBAoE toggle and a proc, with the same, non-stacking debuff?

I'm not getting mad. I'm seeing that wanting to use a certain power is forcing me into a certain build, that wasn't one I was particularly interested in going down and trying to make a suggestion that would increase my enjoyment without significantly impacting the way other people play. The set itself has no defenses or self heals. Yes, there are powers I could take to have defenses and self heals. Even if I didn't know, it would be the work of seconds to tell you that Poison has one that's a 30 degree cone with a range of... 50? It's narrow enough that if you want to hit a sizable portion of a group, you can't use it in the normal range of Venomous Gas. So, if you're the type of person who uses it, you'd use it while running in to hopefully keep the enemies closer to you, since they're a lot more prone to running all over the place now. But if your argument is "Poison only has one cone and water only has one cone, two cones shouldn't entirely define your play style" I'd respond that Poison/Water also only has two PBAoEs. In the days of Unyielding Stance, you could teletank and be perfectly fine. Were the people who wanted to be able to move and have status protection wrong for wanting to pick powersets for a theme and not wanting to change to make it better? Why is there even a suggestions section if I'm supposed to "Be content with the game as is"? What is the argument you're making? What are you arguing against? Are you not familiar with the idea of preventing your enemies from using their defensive powers? You use a control against a paragon protector, fake nemesis, etc. when they get low on health so they can't activate moment of glory, unstoppable, personal force field. It really cuts down on the time it takes to defeat them.

It's fine as long as I don't get into melee. And I really don't want to take the fighting pool on all my characters. My thought is the following: Turning Venomous Gas into a toggle that gives all powers that require accuracy slotting a proc with the exact debuff that venomous gas provides is a viable solution. It has the downside that the debuff would no longer be autohit, but you could use it either at range or in melee. I think that, outside certain edge cases like a Paragon Protector's Moment of Glory, a melee range defender like you wouldn't notice a difference. (I'm not sure how much of a difference you'd notice against a paragon protector's moment of glory, because poison has access to holds and a defender who doesn't hold a Paragon Protector before they use Moment of Glory is not a wise defender). On the other hand, a defender who wants to stay at range and be able to use cones that come with the set, would be able to do so.

Mine is very different. I didn't ignore set bonus, but didn't feel like chasing anything. I mean, I used devastation in all my single target attacks because I felt "Hey, I've got a couple of holds, the chance for more wouldn't hurt" and my targeted AoEs all got -res, because defender's gonna debuff.

Yeah, I've got mine four slotted with Dark Watcher's set. My experience with it is not at all similar to yours.

Yes. It was pretty good. The recharge on Dark Consumption is too slow for me to want to put the heal proc in there.

I have it six slotted on my Invulnerability/Dark Melee tank because I wanted the 4.5 negative energy resist.

You need four Notices of the Well to make a tier 4. You can get two in the first week, one from the Strike force of the Week and one from Mortimer Kal.

The aura is only a 12.5% to hit debuff. Weaken's debuff is more than twice that. The advantage the aura has over Weaken is that it's auto-hit and has a 15 foot radius instead of an 8 foot radius. The aura is nice, but it's not remotely the best power in the set. It is a nice power, but I'd like it more if I didn't have to be in melee to use it. You play a lot of the game at levels at which you don't have patron shields.

I didn't say anything about poison trap. It's the aura that I'm complaining about.