MirrorDarkly

Thanks, Shifting is an odd power. I think it would only go off on corpses if a power that targets them goes off in the area. But some powers like Soothing seem trigger it twice per cast per (alive) enemy in the area.

Do you normally try and get your Mercs to close with the mobs and fight in melee with Tide Pool covering everything or do you have some other strategy?

Usually I miss the window, but this time I was able to donate. Thanks for everything team!

Very impressive! Is savage significantly better to pair with arsenal or do you feel like most secondary's would be able to perform at a similar level?

Whitecap I always slotted with 5 Armageddon (leaving the pure damage enhancement out) plus Fury of the Gladiator Chance for -Res. Tide Pool was just the base slot with Ice Mistral's Endurance/Slow Shifting depends on AT and bonuses I want.

I love Theft of Essence and if I were having End issues slotting it would be the first fix I tried. Since I use Vigor Core that's not been a concern but with a different Alpha slot I could see using it. I may give that a try on a Defender and if I do I'll let you know how it goes.

For that test it was mostly benefiting from Vigor Core Paragon (+45% healing) and it also had an Acc enhancement. The huge cooldown reduction comes from all of my pets generating Shifting Tide stacks for it to consume, and the rest is my global cooldown. On some of my defender tests I've invested more slots into Brine and even at +127% "healing" if doesn't feel much different to use. When I took that defender against a level 54 Infernal I was not able to budge his health. However, as a solo defender I was also not able to generate enough stacks to keep using it every 5 seconds. So it's possible on a defender that slots it and on a team constantly giving them shifting tide stacks to burn if performs better.... but that's a lot of conditionals that I have not been able to test.

The latest patch allowed me to test the updates to Brine on My Illusion controller, vs a lv 54 Diabolique. Unfortunately the -hp is still not doing much, even with a 5 sec cooldown and hitting it every chance I could get. Most of the fight Brine was reducing her hp by -666 (or about 2.775 hp/sec off her regen) and the highest it ever got to was -888hp. For reference one stack of Degen is -650 hp. For this test Brine had a 95% hit chance and +45% healing. I'd still take the power for the -Res, but I think as it's designed trying to stack the -hp is a waste of animation time (at 2 sec a cast) unless you literally have nothing else to do. Edit: As a thought experiment on a Defender that slotted it to +95% heal, that would work out to -1,191hp most of the time with a peak of -1,588hp ( -6.61 regen/sec). So again even with their low damage values I'd think the cast time would be better spent on attacks as long as you maintain the -Res debuff.

I can't speak to 4* but once you get Clarion Marine defenders can absolutely run many groups at +4/x8. Here a Marine/Water defender vs the new Council at that difficulty (and I made the mistake of not putting down Tidal Pool until most of the first group was defeated). For Incarnates I used Vigor Core Paragon and Clarion Core Epiphany, so no Judgements, Lore or Hybrids. I've also done Carnival of Shadows, Malta, Devouring Earth, Talons of Vengeance in DA and hordes of demons at that setting. This set up lacks the single target damage to take down an AV (at least one at that difficulty) but I tanked Infernal until I got bored when testing it. The one group so far that has been a hard counter to my Defender is the Seers, between all Psy damage, staying at range and near immunity to knock back they shred me. The only Marine character I've been able to fight them at +4/x8 and consistently win is my Illusion controller.

Having gone back to do some testing on my Marine/Water defender one thing that I really noticed is that I miss the noisier Barrier Reef much more that I thought I would. Those two power sets together with the constant "whale songs" really felt like I was surrounded by, and in control of, a vast ocean. It was evocative in a way I've rarely experienced in a video game. I realize that was toned down due to feedback and that at least some people disliked it as much as I enjoyed it. So I was wondering if it would be both possible and relatively easy to include one customization option which is both the model and sound from patch 1? It could be called "Undersea Songs" or something like that to let people know it is louder than the other options. Anyways that is purely a personal ask. Overall I think the set is in great shape and I have three names reserved for parings I 100% know I'm going to make with probably many more after that.

I tested Brine out on my Marine/Water defender and the changes felt *very* good.

On my Illusion/Marine controller I'm not seeing the new cooldown reduction when used alongside Rising Tide, despite having a lot of stacks. With no slotting in Brine and Rising Tide OFF I'm seeing a cooldown of 21 seconds. When I fire it with Rising Tide stacked I'm seeing a cooldown of 18-20 seconds. That very small difference is almost certainly the global recharge Rising Tide grants. If I we're getting 45 seconds off the base recharge Brine should have somewhere around a recharge of 5-6 seconds(!) when it eats 3 stacks. Stacks are building and falling off so fast with this combo I cannot tell if Brine is consuming any. Also there are still a few odd endurance costs between ATs. Shifting Tides (it seems like those should be switched). MM: 0.60/sec Cor: 0.78/sec Def: 0.78/sec Power of the Deep MM: 26.00 Cor: 26.00 Def: 26.00

Brine update bug: I'll post in the bug report forum as well but on my Illusion/Marine controller I'm not seeing the new cooldown reduction when used alongside Rising Tide, despite having a lot of stacks. With no slotting in Brine and Rising Tide OFF I'm seeing a cooldown of 21 seconds. When I fire it with Rising Tide stacked I'm seeing a cooldown of 18-20 seconds. That very small difference is almost certainly the global recharge Rising Tide grants. If I we're getting 45 seconds off the base recharge Brine should have somewhere around a recharge of 5-6 seconds(!) when it eats 3 stacks. Also there are still a few odd endurance costs between ATs. Shifting Tides (it seems like those should be switched). MM: 0.60/sec Cor: 0.78/sec Def: 0.78/sec Power of the Deep MM: 26.00 Cor: 26.00 Def: 26.00

I would love an original color option for this power too! I didn't realize we could go back to the no crystal version, and while I don't mind the crystals I thought it was about perfect before.

You were probably seeing double stacked Toroidal Bubble, besides resistance it grants about +20% End recovery.