MonteCarla

I never feel safe with Poison, either if I run it or a teammate has it, whereas FF is the ultimate safety set. Electric Blast is a defensive kind of set, with End drain and a hold as its gimmicks, but it is very friendly for being in melee range with no cones. Elec/Poison could be quite fun!

If you're looking for something less busy, Force Fields or Sonic Resonance are at the other end from Kinetics. Bubble everyone every four minutes, run a toggle or two, and get blasting! Beam Rifle would pair nicely with either conceptually, and provide a good contrast to Water Blast as a more single target focussed set. I had a look though my Corrupters and my favourite was Elec/Elec, but that's quite busy like Kinetics.

I've taken Energy Blast to level 50 ten times now on various archetypes. It's the Blaster. If you can make them survivable enough (and you can with a bug budget) Energy/Energy Blaster feels downright cosmic!

I'd respec now, and fill your powers with your existing enhancements and then start swapping them in for sets as you go. Buying IOs with merits will be slow compared to this simple trick: 1) Buy Enhancement Converters with your merits 2) List them all on the auction house for 1 inf. They will sell immediately for 50,000+ each 3) Buy the enhancements you want from the auction house, already crafted. 1 merit = 3 converters = 150,000. so 6 or 7 merits = 1 million. Luck of the Gambler +Recharge are the most expensive items I recommended. They sell for around 5,000,000, so would take 30 merits or so to have one. Or you can buy the recipe for 50 merits, and crafting costs and ingredients will be over 1,000,000, plus it takes time. Start with getting 4 of them maybe? Doctored Wounds can be bought for around 1,000,000 per piece, and you need 5 of them to get the smaller recharge bonus. Maybe go for them next? Another handy little tip is to monitor your global recharge. Above your powers tray, click Powers->Combat Attributes and find Recharge Time Bonus in the Base section. That allows you to see your global recharge in real time in a little window.

Yeah, this! Before Dominators there were the safer Blasters like Electric or Ice, who have enough mez to hold a tricky opponent long enough to then beat the stuffing out of them. Dominators just extend that spectrum by trading your damage nuke and some AoE for the control "nukes" that Controllers get. When I run Task Forces, I count the support sets who've joined, and I still kinda think of Dominators as support due tot he fact they'll be neutralising entire groups, and thus greatly increasing team safety.

Do I slot 4 pieces of Basilisk's Gaze (for bonuses) and 2 boosted damage IO's in Shocking Grasp/Freezing Touch, or 5 Crushing Impacts and a Hold IO, or damage proc? Do I slot my Controller's ST hold with Basilisk x4 plus damage or Decimation x5 and a Hold IO, or..? I like decisions like this. Adding damage to control sets could give us one best solution for everything, which wouldn't be great.

If you slot a defensive toggle with 4 pieces of Luck of the Gambler or Unbreakable Guard, you still get better power slotting values than 3 Res/Def and 1 End Redux SO's. So I don't mind the "wasted" +Recharge in the power for a normal toggle. Some toggles like Manouvers, Dispersion Bubble and Sonic Dispersion have non-negligible cooldowns. They're all 15 seconds base, so having some recharge slotted is great when you run out of end mid fight and your toggles drop. And when you do want that +Recharge (Fortitude, Farsight, Force of Nature and other god modes etc) it's really important that the main defensive sets carry these bonuses. So I think the presence of +Recharge in these sets is a conscious design decision, rather than scraping the bottom of the barrel. What would the alternative be? Def, Def/End, End and ... ?

There's some sets with really nice bonuses but not so great enhancement values when you slot the whole set. Mako's Bite and Artillery don't give ED-capped damage until you're almost at level 50, but do give big +Ranged Defence at 6 slots. I wrestled with this with an early Blaster. Obliteration gives you all the damage an recharge, but a tiny +15% End Reduction from the quadruple, but gives a really nice +Recharge and +Melee Def at 5 and 6 slots. This gives you a source of build tension. Do I chase the set bonuses and make up for the shortcomings in the enhancements, or forego the 6th slot and frankenslot something better in there like a */Dam from another set or a HamiO or something? Some sets with a good bonus are sub-6 slots (eg Kinetic Combat and Entropic Chaos are both a bit light on +Acc for the power) but you can shore this up with an extra slot of something else, or just live with it. If these sets had a 7th or 8th member, that tension goes away and the choice is a no-brainer. For most sets (eg Thunderstrike, Crushing Impact) there is already no choice - both the set bonuses and enhancement values they provide are good. So, yeah, I'm not really sure what we'd gain from this? A set with 7 or 8 members just allows you to prioritise End Redux, Recharge or Acc in a power, kind of like I already do when 5-slotting Crushing Impact?

Your build's full of powers six-slotted with regular IOs, so you're running into the diminishing returns of Enhancement Diversification pretty heavily. Basically, after 3 IOs of the same type you don't get much of a bonus. eg 6 Recharge IOs in Hasten is giving you only 118% Recharge, even though each one alone is worth 42%. I usually slot only two IOs in Hasten, and then +5 them with Boosters to get good enough values. The way to get perma-Hasten now is through set bonuses in IO sets. Have a look here at my advice for building "Bad-Ass" Empaths, ie ones who attack - there may be some useful info there. But in brief , my advice is: - 2 or 3 slot Hasten - 2 or 3 slot Stamina - 2 or 3 slot Recovery Aura - don't slot Hover for Defence, the base value is tiny. - Put a Luck of the Gambler +Recharge unique in Fortitude, Hover, Manouvers and Stealth. - Put the six slots of Preventative Medicine in Healing Aura - 5 pieces of Doctored Wounds in every other healing powers including Regen Aura - Obliteration in your nuke - 5x Sting of the Manticore in your snipe - Decimation in X-Ray Vision and Neutrino Bolt and Cosmic Burst - Positrons Blast in Neutrino Bomb This should give you around +80% global recharge, which works on top of your slotted recharge for each power. Your powers will generally also be better, since IO sets give you a good mix of accuracy, end redux, recharge and so on as well as damage/healing. If you want to put damage procs in your attacks instead, I got a guide for that too! 🙂

What if.. Mastermind ATOs could be slotted in Mastermind attacks? That would ease up the slotting crunch for non Thugs/Demons MMs considerably.

Love this in-depth analysis, @Maelwys I pretty much agree with everything you've written on the procs and their usefulness. Some of them favour certain powersets. The Minor Heal PBAoE for Defenders is great for Force Fields or Sonic Resonance, but a bit of a drop in the green healing ocean for Empathy. The Mastermind ones are better for primaries with an extra pet like Thugs and Demons, due to the very weird sliding block puzzle that is Mastermind pet slotting. What has always bugged me is the set bonuses, especially where Recharge is concerned. Mastermind's can split Mark of Supremacy 3 ways, and add in 4 pieces of Command of the Mastermind to get 4 recharge bonuses out of the sets, 25% while levelling, 40% at level 50. Defenders and Corrupter can split Vigilant Assault and Scourging Blast 3/3 to get 3 recharge bonuses. (Kheldians can do this too, I see) Most ATs get two Recharge bonuses from their ATIOs. And poor old Controllers and Dominators (who love recharge the most!) are left with 1 Recharge bonus, because Overwhelming Presence and Dominating Grasp have terrible set bonuses, as well as underwhelming (and concept-breaking) pseudo-pet procs. I doubt its common to build these low HP classes for +HP or Smashing Resistance, but that's what we get! (Oh, and Tanks and VEATs also only get 1 Recharge bonus too.) My Defenders/Corrupters celebrate turning 50 by getting an extra 11.25% Recharge when they catalyse their sets. My Controllers and Doms get only 1.25% extra, although they do get very good Purple set opportunities to compensate. That never felt fair to me.

I've gone this route for a number of characters. It reminds me of Champions Online's Acrobatics travel power, which combined Speed and Jumping without being as good as either, but did the job nicely. Only here it's completely free! Oh, I'm also using Prestige Power Slide and Athletic Run with a Path Aura for ice slides for my Ice/Ice blaster Zero Kay. And loving it!

Super Reflexes is OK - at its peak you become very survivable (except to Devouring Earth and Nemesis with their +To Hit) and get the speed/Recharge bonus. Electric Armor can lead to insane resistances and survivability along with the Speed/Recharge bonus, a damage aura, unlimited energy, and a mild self heal. My Elec/Elec Brute ended up with 90% resistance to everything except Toxic and Dark, and was an absolutely indestructible machine. She prompted me to write my "Resistance for Brutes" guide. I'd go Electric Armor.

Oh yeah! You can't really play an I8 Tanker any more, between the low damage, lack of Stamina and everything else they had to put up with. I do remember a friend playing his Inv/SS Tanker getting a little bit pissy at how effective I was compared to him - he was playing a Shazam-style superman and I didn't have any powers. 🙂

I'd go Scrapper for this. A lot of other classes are able to shore up their weaknesses using IOs, but Scrappers had that sweet spot between dealing damage and survivability back then. My MA/SR Scrapper did really well in this era, and both sets are pretty much unchanged. There are probably even better combinations, but I'm no expert on Scrappers.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the cap only applies to how much damage you take, rather than your resistance to debuffs. So if you build up 100% Smashing Resistance, say, then you'll still have 90% effective resistance to damage on a Tank/Brute, but you can't be debuffed at all.

I've noticed this with Council vampire bosses. They often run off and refuse to stop running to the point where it's almost comical - chasing one up and down a corridor landing hits on them till they fall. Even if they're taunted!

I know. But, I run multiple task forces most weekends. In the past year that's happened maybe 3 times, and in each case we figured out due to some combination of - teleport target/fold space - rain powers and damage auras - everyone runs round the corner and the enemy's popped out of the wall by themselves Its certainly less trouble than being picky about my teammate's powers

Knockback is always welcome on my teams.

Yeah, +Damage is the one that's intriguing me right now. I'm sure I've seen people on the Blaster forums say they slot for it. It would make most sense on a Blaster or Stalker, or Scrapper. I've got a KM/Nin/Psy Stalker lined up in my head. Looking here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Category:Sets_with_Damage_bonuses - I could get: Apocalypse, Coercive Persuasion (Blinding Powder) and Superior Assassin and Superior Stalker's Guile: +16% Obliteration, Sting of the Manticore and 3 x Mako's Bite: +15% 5 x 2% bonuses (Red Fortune, Adjusted Targeting): +10% for a global +41% damage. Hmm. Tier 4 Musculature gives you 2/3 (after ED) of 45%, so another +30%. For comparison, Call to Justice is a +40% damage boost to Stalkers, and I always make sure I get that ASAP. It could be the difference between dropping a Boss with an Assassin Strike and quick follow up, or not. ( And I might be shooting myself in the foot by choosing Kinetic Melee.. 🙂 )

Not all IO set bonuses are created equal. Dishing out some advice in the Defenders forums I realised I have a very set in my ways approach to them, like a mental checklist of what's worth pursuing and what isn't. What set bonuses do you chase? These are mine, in order of how much I follow them: Recharge - almost always. This will typically stack up to 2 or 3 extra SO's worth, or more. 90%+ of my characters do this. Defence - usually positional, but typed for the right armor sets. 66%+ of my characters have done this? Resistance - definitely a build goal for the right armor sets - on Tanks, Brutes and Epic ATs with the higher caps. Accuracy - usually get a single SO's worth at least by accident. I've occasionally not accumulated this, shrugged and moved on. Run Speed - did this once, and got noticeably high unsuppressed run speed. Quite fun to do as a one-off. (This was before the Thrust unique IO) Fly Speed/Jump Speed - never done Slow Resistance - did this on my main Dominator once to help preserve perma-Dom, as per forum advice. KB Protection - I used to use uniques instead, now use START vendor buffs Recovery - accidentally get this, but don't think it makes a big difference due to low numbers Range - never more than two Bombardment sets in cone-heavy sets. Is there an extreme teleporter case here? Max End - never deliberately chased, except for one character who had 125+ Energy with accolades, and I just wanted the number to go up 🙂 Max HP - never chased, but I believe people do? Damage - never chased, but I believe people do? Regen - never chased this. The healing procs seem more effective (Panacea in Health, Power Transfer in Stamina) Healing - never chased this. Mez effects eg +Confuse - never chased Mez Resistance - never bothered Does anyone have any good cases that differ from this pattern - eg chasing +Damage or +Health, or making a super-ranged expert?

The 6% Healing Bonus at 4 pieces will apply to all healing powers, including the Medicine pool. I'm not sure if chasing healing bonuses will change things for you much, compared to say the Ranged Defence and Recharge bonuses at 5 and 6 pieces, but it will have an effect.

Archery/Sonic Defender. Your ability to protect yourself will be terrible: - 24% resistance from Sonic Dispersion - Single target stun in Stunning Shot - Liquefy on a long recharge. Your only other secondary power you can us is Sonic Siphon, although... you could use Sonic Cage here. You could still make this work, but it'll be an uphill battle!

Vazhilok with their -Recharge toxins seem especially egregious at the lower levels where you encounter them, when you don't have much of an attack chain built up.

Every character I make gets: - both sets of ATOs if I want them - Panacea +HP/End in Health - Gladiators Armor and Steadfast uniques if they fit - as many LotG +Rech as they can fit - any other non-purple/non-winter sets I like (Basilisk's Gaze, Unbreakable Guard etc) - all three P2W buffs topped up continuously while I level. After 50, I buy them per task force. I don't worry unduly about them running down if I'm roleplaying, at the market or a hanging around chatting. - all the teleporter temps, Return to Battle, some Resuscitators, and the crafting table if I feel like it. I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it. 🙂 I have a bunch of 200 million emails sitting in my inbox always and pull one for each character, which usually does them until they're 50. If I need to grab a second one, so be it. Crafting from the task forces I run on the way to 50 will often generate 2 of these emails for me, so I don't really worry about my wealth when my income is this good.