Nemu

For all the anti-healer rhetoric that everyone seems to dogpile and weigh their expert opinion on, when I see a build like this I wonder if I chose the right side.... Lack of clear mind does trigger me. You are the unsung hero, keeping squishies protected from mezzes so that they can do their jobs. Players will not sing you praises for this seemingly mundane action (the more astute players will appreciate you for this though), but the impact of this one single power outweighs everything else that you bring to the table for seasoned players who like you (or what you are attempting here) built their characters for high defense already. Some like me have their squishies defensively mature by level 30, but you know what I don't have access to even with all the defenses in the world at that level? - a reliable anti-mez. And when I see an emp the ONLY thing I want from them is CM, and most of them disappoint. Have you considered that mezzed squishies aren't really contributing? Sure a fort on them helps them dodge some mezzes but when they do get mezzed and they will, far more than you or anyone that espouse the "blast more support less" mindset would care to admit, they can't contribute. For all the talk about defenders being able to contribute to the team with their damage (and buffs/debuffs), I find this thought process and execution rather selfish. You would rather get on with your own pew pews than help the blaster maximize their potential, or the toggle dependent support AT to get shut down and deprive the team of their force multiplying buffs/debuffs? It doesn't take a lot to CM someone, at the end of an engagement during the clean up phase, then those guys are good to go for the next engagement. But it's your build, you choice. You wouldn't be the first to not use CM, and it only perpetuates people's perception of empathy's relevance today, As for the rest of the build: Instead of victory rush have you considered the P2W serum? They are cheap and you can save a power pick for world of confusion. You invested 15 slots into these 2.5% range defense bonuses when 5 additional slots in WOC with coercive can give you 10% recharge AND 5% range defense. In general 6 slots for 2.5% defense is terrible ROI. With those saved slots you can put some LOTG 7.5s in the defensive powers for more recharge, and toss in a kismet +acc in maneuvers as well. If you are going to go proc-heavy you need to make sure you have enough to-hit and ACC to hit, and the to hit helps with snipe damage. Skipping the snipe is also questionable. At worst its a hard hitting attack in your arsenal, at best it's 2.5% range defense AND 7.5% global recharge with 5 piece sting of the manticore. Also what settings do you solo at? Do you just shoot for 45 and 75 because that's how you play your armored ATs? What's a realistic expectation for what this build "should" handle and do you need those numbers with those expectations in mind? I can tell you if you plan to play this as a derpy lol melee AT that stands their ground, you are going to fail, miserably. The lack of combat mobility and immobilization protection already puts you at a disadvantage as a squishy AT light on other forms of mitigation. Standing your ground and relying on 45 and 75 will just put the nail in the coffin.

Hello, I play a lot of pandas, and some people are starting to jump on the panda hype. As such I propose some support for pandas, such as the option to panda roll as a travel power, seen here I would also propose a panda nap emote, because pandas are really good at napping, mid mission. Like so Please share your panda suggestions here.

I chose the +crit proc in GD because it has a longer animation time and longer recharge, you can try it in SD and see if that works any better. Neither are great candidates for procs but I rather have these procs in ST attacks that I will use often than area attacks that don't get used all that much for harder targets. The low ACC in both SD and GD is offset by kismet and the +acc bonuses from purples and the 4 slot LOTG. Even without targeting drone I sit at 95% hit chance against +4s with both SD and GD. The lost recharge enhancement in these powers is offset by the recharge bonuses from purples +LOTG/Hasten/FF proc. There is a method to my madness here. While 88% damage enhancement is not at the ED cap, taking the damage proc away and replacing it with a damage enhancement results in even lower numbers especially when you factor musculature in at endgame, and I left musculature turned off intentionally in the export. Just to round out the thought process, there's also the -res proc in exploding shuriken which is also procced to do a bit more damage, and caltrops provides another layer of mitigation to buy you some time when things get really heated. Targeting drone provides additional to hit and debuff resistance. These are the reasons I chose weapons mastery rather than mu. As good as EA is, the heal is really more an endurance sustain that you'd put on autofire and energy drain really doesn't add all that much to your overall mitigation, and katana doesn't have any AoE soft control options available. I could go soul mastery for shadowmeld and a snipe and lose out on more AoE options, I could go mu for a snipe and a decent AoE but at the cost of additional mitigation tools, or I can go weapons master and get a mix of tools that help both damage and survival.

You should qualify that statement. Why do you think /bio will do more damage in the real world on a build that skipped flashing steel and where you have to spam divine avalanche, ablative carapace, dNA siphon, and parasitic aura to stay alive? Builds that invest heavily into survival means that they invest less in procs. Linea's build is for extreme survival, do you really need that level of survival? Energy aura is very easy to softcap which means you can invest in more damage procs if your mindset is "I don't need to run 801s to prove myself or have fun." In that context, proc light bio that has to spam DA and all sorts of other tools to stay alive vs proc heavy EA that doesn't need DA and has more damage procs in attacks, which one would do more damage? This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.4.7 https://github.com/Reborn-Team/MidsReborn Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Natural Scrapper Primary Power Set: Katana Secondary Power Set: Energy Aura Power Pool: Sorcery Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Speed Ancillary Pool: Weapon Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Sting of the Wasp -- Hct-Dmg(A), Hct-Dmg/Rchg(5), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), Hct-Acc/Rchg(7), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx(11) Level 1: Kinetic Shield -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(3), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(3), LucoftheG-Def(5), Rct-ResDam%(13), Ksm-ToHit+(49) Level 2: Flashing Steel -- SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg(A), SprScrStr-Dmg/Rchg(13), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), SprScrStr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17), SprScrStr-Rchg/+Crit(17) Level 4: Mystic Flight -- WntGif-ResSlow(A) Level 6: Build Up -- GssSynFr--Build%(A), RctRtc-ToHit/Rchg(19), RctRtc-Pcptn(19) Level 8: Power Shield -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(9), LucoftheG-Def(9), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(11), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(40) Level 10: Entropic Aura -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 12: Dampening Field -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A), Ags-ResDam/EndRdx(23), Ags-ResDam(25), Ags-Psi/Status(27) Level 14: Kick -- Empty(A) Level 16: Energy Protection -- RctArm-ResDam(A), RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx(27), RctArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(34) Level 18: The Lotus Drops -- Arm-Dmg(A), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Arm-Acc/Rchg(39), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(40), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(40) Level 20: Energy Cloak -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(21), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(21), LucoftheG-Def(23) Level 22: Tough -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(34), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(34), UnbGrd-Max HP%(36) Level 24: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25) Level 26: Soaring Dragon -- FrcFdb-Rechg%(A), AchHee-ResDeb%(36), Hct-Dam%(37), HO:Nucle(37), Dmg-I(37), TchofLadG-%Dam(39) Level 28: Energize -- Pnc-Heal/EndRedux(A), Pnc-EndRdx/Rchg(29), Pnc-Heal/Rchg(29), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux/Rchg(33), Pnc-Heal(33) Level 30: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(31), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(31), LucoftheG-Def(31) Level 32: Golden Dragonfly -- FrcFdb-Rechg%(A), FuroftheG-ResDeb%(33), SprCrtStr-Rchg/+50% Crit(43), HO:Nucle(45), Dmg-I(45), Arm-Dam%(45) Level 35: Caltrops -- PstBls-Dam%(A), JvlVll-Acc/Dmg/End/Rech(46), Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(46), ImpSwf-Dam%(46) Level 38: Energy Drain -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), SynSck-EndMod(42), SynSck-Dam/Rech(42), SynSck-EndMod/Rech(42), SynSck-Dam/Rech/Acc(43), SynSck-EndMod/+RunSpeed(43) Level 41: Targeting Drone -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 44: Spirit Ward -- Prv-Absorb%(A) Level 47: Exploding Shuriken -- Ann-ResDeb%(A), Bmbdmt-+FireDmg(47), PstBls-Dam%(47), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg(48), SprFrzBls-Dmg/EndRdx(48), SprFrzBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48) Level 49: Rune of Protection -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Critical Hit Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- Pnc-Heal/+End(A), Mrc-Rcvry+(36) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A) Level 50: Musculature Radial Paragon ------------ | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1349;676;1352;HEX;| |78DA6593CB6B135114C6EF2493A649D39769FACCA3491F699B761A45C16AA588AD8| |24DA5D085CB30B4D7361092308960972EDC89A215DDE85670E34AC5AD5BB5FA6708| |6AAD500515249ECCF719850E197E99F3FCCE9D332BD716434F2F5C5F5046C7B9A25| |DADE6D7D61DBB52D18EFF925DBBEAD845D5B8FC7247FE7AF22BBAA8B5B56CD7EC92| |1D6D5A17F5155DAA6A6BA9A49DCDEDFC594956A1D572B968AD959D75ED6CB7BB0FE| |70B9B5BB5426933085745EB8D4EF76F4EDB1BDAA96E152AE1A54A61DDBAACED4AB9| |945FB1AB3549EE170549B96FFA15AFBAA9C63D4A1D359599065B26C8493038457FA| |F841B6E8E4F450CD7E6E922C3A0D903860EBC2EB3BF253C66AA5BD2CF60AEF11ABE| |D01BB0E32DB90B76BD23DF833B634A79A155798760BB2DF57CB0797C4FA0EFC8436| |158F8086C11BD7EF434FDD4DB4ABDADD419A4EEF432EAFA2527801C15681C94D87C| |626B83CDDB760C71BD59E4F51F07074FF01C44573BB5B6D7E552AD92DD896C4F67C| |A704F63302E4C9B2A9904EF4A5637DF46F7494C337E8A3C0DA6E7C939302075C354| |15E6743D9CAE8753F5724AAFD48F3036F20D1324BF933FC0919F604A62FB106BF46| |57002FDE48EF806A0D33770033A465EE1B44733781E9D17778B578DC61A390135BE| |CB2D12BD437C1B4351F48AC6C838389C20874153FAC5A83BC619E39C31CE19E39CF| |19EC426A82D416DC30BA833A54D97D3D4364D6DD36710A7E497629FD44BCC3A3387| |DC198F0F7C8C77D726738CA9A0DB678C9A263FA2FEE427F23338B547EE83BF424A4| |D703B26B85D7764BB33DCB8CC1E7A7A24DCE22CD607D82CEAB0A86FF6196ACE3E27| |5F80F7A55E963DB27DD01C359B5FBBFC1A5B99309BDF723D77C8BB6AD22916C3B5E| |C059BDF2F2DFBFF2C8691E40E5DC43E7F3914FDF57FCB039C7AC351CF85E53F5AD5| |FF00C984C7D1| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

I can be harsh in my tone but I also try to be fair. If you perceive my message as unkind then I apologize. That is not my intention. When you go with a resist epic you will simply won't have the luxury to shore up multiple defense vectors for survival. If you want a more casual playing experience with greater margin for error then perhaps scorp shield is the right call. With tough you can still get respectable S/L resist on top of your defenses. I don't think you will have any issues with survival on trials due to the incarnate spam, so if solo is your concern another approach if you stick with the resist shields is to use your toolkit, shockwave and sirens song are both effective ways to mitigate damage. They maybe boring, they may drag out the fight, but they are effective. I still recommend shifting your emphasis away from melee defense to range defense if you had to choose. Just remember that range defense works whether you are 80 ft away or 10 ft away, as long as mobs can't swing at you. By constantly moving just slightly out of mobs melee reach you can still be in melee and make range defense work for you. I would approach this build with psy mastery. 1 - you get a resist shield which aligns with your plan. 2 - procced out dominate gives you a boost to your single target damage. You will never be an AoE all star with sonic blast, but you can do respectable ST damage, especially since the only way you can boost proc damage is through -resist. 3 - World of confusion is a great set mule for 5% range defense and 10% recharge.

You got most of the power picks that you should be getting per conventional wisdom from both sonic sets. I would make a case for clarity because mezzes suck and you can help fellow teammates without mez protection maximize their potential even if they go outside your bubble. Plus Clarity offers blind, terrorize, sleep, and confuse protection which your bubble does not. I would also make a case for dropping shout and picking up shockwave for a reliable source of active crowd control and another AoE. I think some posters will point out your single slot of sonic haven as not really committing yourself to support. In all honesty if you just plan to solo and only team for incarnate trials you don't even need those resist shield buffs as one can sleep through any incarnate trial by virtue of other people spamming their incarnates. Your buffs don't matter when half the league is spamming barriers. If that is your thought process then I echo what others are saying, play another AT. I'm more interested in pointing out your thought process and lack of synergy when you drew up your game plan around soul drain. First of all, dedicating the entirety of your build just so that you can ensure 3 seconds of safety in melee is horrible return on investment. Learn to joust, that will help you minimize your exposure to melee and change the way you play the game. Secondly, it's not lack of melee defense that will kill you. It's the other mobs taking potshots at you and softening you up at a distance. If you think you can just stand your ground and be heroic and derp it out with mobs that can debuff you and cause cascade failure then you will have a very tough time dealing with actual challenging content. Third - Mobs are dumb, you are not, learn mob AI mechanics, use movement and leverage soft control and range defense, because you have the option to dictate how mobs engage you by moving. Use that to your advantage. Go read my posts in the blaster forums about how to play melee blasters. Survival is not just defense and resistance, it's how you use your toolkit and whether you have the right tools in your kit. Try out shockwave, put a kd proc in it if knockback bothers you. Fourth - does sonic blast really benefit that much even from a saturated soul drain? The blast set is low damage and takes time to ramp up, the AoE cones root you for more time than necessary if you took and used them. And sonic resonance doesn't really do much in the -res debuff department to really help you capitalize on the damage buff. Lastly what if you are fighting a single target like an AV? You just invested the entirety of your build to beef up melee defense just so you can have an 8% damage boost for 30 seconds. You say you want to cap resists but there are other armor epics that lets you cap S/L resists too, what about psy mastery? You can proc out dominate and drop shout for it, it's a vastly superior option that will give you some consistent ST punch. My point is, consider the synergy, best case scenario AND worst case scenario when evaluating powers. Just because you have powers that need you to be in melee doesn't mean you need melee defense. Learn game mechanics and practice the art of movement.

Do they? Paired with sonic blast? With the power selections that he chose? To elaborate, the game plan seems to revolve around soul drain, hence the emphasis on melee defense and recharge. There is a tremendous amount of slotting dedicated to melee defense, at the cost of these other things you noted, which I see as well. I'm trying to get him to ask himself the question "is it worth it to build around that single power? Is it the right power to base a build around? Have you thought about worst case scenario with soul drain where you miss or hit only 1 target, if all this investment into melee defense worth it then?" You can't help people with builds unless you help them understand the thought process, assuming they want to get better and learn. The OP asked for build help. I'm trying to get him to examine the reasons he made the decisions he made so he can learn something. It's easy to brush off a build and say play xyz instead. It takes much more effort to break the build and thought process down and offer constructive feedback that aligns with what the OP is asking for, which is build help, not "which AT should I play based on how you perceive my intentions." Intentions can be changed with the right coaching.

Not helpful, if you want to change the way people approach builds take the time to educate and enable them. Being bitter about the meta benefits no one. @Sweetcake I looked at the build. A few questions to understand your thought process: 1 - Is this a solo build or are you looking to take it to teams? 2 - Are you looking to be effective only when you get melee radial hybrid? Do you understand that only last 2 minutes with a longer cooldown so without it what are you going to do? 3 - Let's say your melee defense allows you stay in melee for the 3 seconds you need to pop off soul drain, then what? What devastating attacks will you be unleashing on your poor victims to really take advantage of soul drain and what are you going to do in the next 27 seconds against a bunch of angry mobs shooting at you? How is your melee defense going to help you there? 4 - Why did you choose soul drain in the first place? Bonus question: 5 - Do you REALLY need hasten? What's the thought process behind including that in your build?

Welcome to the forums. I'm going to be brutal but fair. The end goal is so that you start to look at why you slot the way you do, and once you start to understand the why you can start to optimize. First of all turn off power boost and all the incarnates, they provide an inaccurate view of your overall performance, especially if you exemp down. With all the incarnates turned on you have pretty respectable numbers. With range defense at softcap and power boost perma with hasten, which is also perma. However your numbers dip much lower without those incarnate powers. Even with powerboost you manage to muster about 35% range defense and hasten is not perma. As for set bonuses you seem to understand the concept of stacking set bonuses and you mostly avoided the newbie mistake of slotting full purple sets and replaced the 6 slot with a proc, except for Armageddon in inferno, whether that's intentional or an oversight I don't know, but you can certainly shave a slot or replace the 6th with a proc and keep the recharge bonus at 5 slots. You are missing the gladiator's armor 3% def unique and the 2 +resist uniques from reactive defense and shield wall. There are opportunities to fit at least the Annihilation -res proc into one of your targeted AoEs. You can certainly put a damage proc in fireball, but a -res proc makes all your other attacks do more damage and helps the team as well. It's probably more bang for the buck. There are some other questionable slotting decisions but before we get into that let's discuss your game plan. Are you planning to hover over enemies and shoot them, reserving bonesmasher and total focus to punish those who manage to get up close, or are you actively looking for opportunities to punch face? Most newbie blasters learn towards ranged blasting, and they take bonfire to compliment that strategy. Bonfire is available at 35. Do you exemp a lot? Do you want to be effective throughout your career or just after you get bonfire? First a few comments on questionable slotting: Stamina. 6 slots gets you 7.5% recharge, I see that you are shooting for recharge but slotting stamina when Energize eliminates your end problems is something you do only if you have no better options to dump slots in, If you 6 slot that with preventive medicine which you already have 3 pieces of, you get 8.75% recharge AND and emergency absorb shield that kicks in the lower your life is. 3 Slotting vengeance - you get a paltry amount of +HP on a power that you may rarely use. Vengeance is typically a one slot wonder for luck of the gambler. Those 2 additional slots can be invested elsewhere for more meaningful returns. 5 slotting fire shield with Aegis. What's the rationale here? You don't have any fire/cold/aoe defense bonuses anywhere else in the build. More importantly, why do you think you need fire/cold/aoe defense? What's your game plan and how does having f/c/aoe defense factor into it? Miracle in Health, You may find it unnecessary because energize will take care of all your endurance problems. That's potentially another slot saved that you can invest elsewhere. Next some holes in your build: Mez protection - blasters get mezzed easily and learning how to insp combine/pop breakfrees should be second nature, otherwise you are going to have a tough time enjoying the AT. You got kb protection covered but you can also eliminate having to worry about immobilization if you took combat jumping. If you wanted to fly during combat you can always grab a P2W jetpack temp. If you are adamant about having fly then it might be worthwhile digging deeper into the pool for hover and evasive maneuvers, as the latter will provide -fly resistance and also immobilization resistance or protection. The last thing you want as a blaster is to be an immobile blaster, and I think you only need to be web grenaded once to be reminded how important it is to stay mobile. Slow resist - -recharge debuffs and movement speed slows will wreck you. If you have the budget and it look like you do with all the purple sets, consider investing in some slow resistance, A easy 20% comes from the winter travel unique, The other options are Winter IOs which are considerably more expensive. Before you start tinkering with the build and we move to refining it, answer this question first: What is your game plan and your goal with this build?

Fire farms weren't really a thing on live, winter IOs were harder to get. People got smarter and realized that they can make fire farms and take an AT with the best survivability/damage ratio to that content. People also got dumber as a result because now most people don't even know how to play anything has any semblance of complexity.

FIre Armor/staff is more satisfying on Stalkers. Burn can crit, and staff gets a heavy hitter in assassin's strike. Double build up burn crit will make you giggity giggity goo. Not saying that it won't work fine as a tank, Staff compliments Fire Armor well by offering it defense, some soft control and force feedback slotting, but I find the stalker version more fun to play.

You can get LRM on a blaster and be the RAMBO you are meant to be. i27 Rambo Build - Blaster - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com)

I think power gamers will only use the empowered buff for seismic force with a gaussian's proc. I tried the other empowered powers and found the timing unreliable since building stacks of seismic force and getting the actual buff to proc is not as cadenced and thus predictable as building charges in water blast. With the latter is 1,2,3 go, with the former it's 1,2,3,4?,5?,6?,7? ok now I get the proc go. I tried the other spenders, the lack of consistency in anticipating when I can use them in a chain starts to annoy me once I got past the novelty of a new set. Aim though, that's always a nice low investment buff to have and I see the whole mechanic as a free stalkers ATO build up recharge proc which I'm actually cool with.

You are going to get all sorts of KB lovers coming out of hiding to tell you to F* off. This topic is even more contentious than your auto-level to 50 suggestion. You don't know what you've gotten yourself into. The only way to top this is to make a dedicated emp healer thread.

It's a very subjective term. It's not the best at damage, even with procs it's still limited by cast time, and procs are not guaranteed damage because nothing has a 100% chance to proc. For that reason it won't be the best when you compare it to high DPA sets like fire blast or ice blast. If you want to do a lot of damage very quickly, rad blast is middle of the pack. I prefer to define success and fun as "Does it do the thing that I want it to do?" Goal setting and synergy is important to me. Synergy on blasters could be playstyle (melee vs range), it could be Stacking similar effects (stacking ice holds with a secondary with a hold for example, or for one of my builds a rad/dev blaster that stacks -def with high +to hit to make sure I can hit ANYTHING) Synergy on support ATs could be playstyle, it could be mixing debuff types or stacking them (I have a Poison/DP defender that focuses on -dmg, and this build here that uses -def to make room for procs and shave off kin slotting to maximize damage) What does best mean for you?

I propose a skill check. Start a level 1 character, no insps no temps(that includes beast run/athletic run/jetpack and such) no stealth. Run from atlas to hollows, go through hollows through the gulch and make it all the way up the mountains then back down to the skyway entrance, without dying. That's part 1. This will test your understanding of aggro radius. Part 2 - blaster wtih basic SO slotting, level 15. Clear 3 groups of pumicites +0/8 in a trap room with mobs around both corners and a third one directly in front. Insps/temps allowed, no deaths. This will test your awareness, insp prioritization, kiting, and pulling. Part 3 - repeat that exercise with a mastermind to see if you actually understand how to control your pets. If you fail, you need to work harder.

Well, if you are talking 100% chance then no, Earsplitter has a 75% chance for a mag 3 hold and that's still pretty high. I don't think it's game breaking to have 2 100% holds in one set especially if you consider the leveling progression and how far these powers are apart from each other. An ice/electric/dark/dual pistols blaster can already use their hold + the mag2 hold from certain blaster secondaries early game as mitigation, having a 100% hold at level 38 doesn't change that. Having said that I'd rather not have a mag 2 hold. I'd like Earth Mastery to have a bit more smashy AoE goodness, Can Tremor also have an alternate animation, like the one atom smasher has? Build up seems generic, can we do something like "strength of stone" where you get a reduced damage buff but add additional smashing or lethal damage to all attacks, kinda like toxins or envenomed blades from dominator Martial Assault? I like the idea of free rocks with all attacks. Who's with me?

That depends entirely on how you approach this game. Do you play for fun or do you play "the best?" This post is about synergy, not about squeezing maximum performance out of an AT.

Sonic Manipulation says hello! I'm intrigued by salt crystals. Now that sleeps are autohit it might be useful as a tool to detoggle annoying mob powers like darkest night or hurricane. It's the perfect place for the fortunata hypnosis placate proc, the fact that it takes -def sets is just gravy on top. It won't make it into a mainstream meta build but it could be a fun off-meta power to play with. I wouldn't say no if it got replaced by fault though, fault is fun, more fun than salt crystals. Blasters need more KU.

Cobalt Arachne I understand that higher difficulties award more salvage but merits and salvage are accessible through other content as well. People are lazy, they will take the path of least resistance. If they can get meirts/salvage through leeching on BAF or farming burden of the past I think they will take that path rather then spend 2+ hours with multiple deaths with the risk of not completing this Strike Force. The one reward they absolutely can not shortcut are the new enhancements. And since there are a lot of new permutations to these enhancements I can see supply being very low and inaccessible to a lot of players. Given the length of this Strike Force and the commitment it requires of players I think it might be worthwhile to examine the payoff.

The changes to short circuit provides the biggest QoL and game play benefit for drain builds. I took my Elec/Energy for a spin against +4/8 Unai BP map and it was instrumental in me being able to quickly sap a group and reduce the risk of a mez stopping my game plan during the short circuit animation. The chain mechanic is a nice bonus when it's applicable. In my run there were too many runners to make good use of the chain mechanic. It's not something I will open a fight with either, because you NEED to SC first and follow with BL to maximize the "drain alpha strike" The shock mechanic is nice, I won't say no to added damage. I took VS and used it on the map, I did get mezzed a few times but not enough to sour my opinion on it. I felt it moved a bit slow, and it's not something I depended on to help me kill the stuff I'm trying to kill. It did tag some runners and I won't say no to free damage. For regular game play it's not necessary, but for AV/GM hard target fights it can come in handy.

Just finished my first run. Very cool. It's on the long side and I have mixed feelings about that. This is not the kind of SF that I'd run every day after work and 40 Merits feels low for a default difficulty run, what if the run awarded 2 random D-Sync enhancements with 1 more bonus awarded for the highest difficulty?? That might entice people to run it beyond the first time for badges and generate surplus for all the new enhancements. Also the crafting workbenches work on the Vanguard base map so you can take a mini break and get your craft on! Lastly the vacuum effect is cool and puts a spin on the kind of controlled choreography of the fights on live. However dying to something that you can't do anything about is not a good game mechanic. I haven't learned the nuances of this mechanic since it's my first run through so I may be completely off base. But if the effect is indeed uncounterable, then can we look into player buffs adding resistance to the effect so that squishier ATs have a fighting chance to get out of a kill zone they are being sucked into?

Looks at Thread Title...

You are talking about defiance 2.0. Clearly this is defiance 3.0!

Defiance buff. When toggled on it appears to ramp up damage over 5 seconds, up to a max of 26.80% Not sure if that's working as intended. The other earth mastery powers lack the defiance number in their power info. But they definitely do generate defiance +dmg buffs