MonteCarla

The Defence category just tells you which powers you can slot it onto. That's why you can't put a LotG End/Rech into an attack, even though the bonuses would work there. Typically, full sets give you better bonuses than slotting IO's because of all these mixed attribute pieces. Two attributes enhance them both by 2/3 IO values Three attributes enhance them both by 1/2 IO values An example is Thunderstrike or Crushing Impact - both sets give you the equivalent of 3 Damage, 2 End Redux, 2 Acc and 2 Recharge for juts 6 slots. And then there's the set bonuses on top of that! Other sets often have an End/Rech piece which don't enhance the primary attribute of the power, eg Unbreakable Guard or Doctored Wounds. You'd use these when: - You're chasing the higher set bonuses and want a full set - You've ED capped the main attribute and want to improve the power further - End or Recharge are more important than the primary stat, eg Elude, or even Fortitude. When I use LotG its mainly for the recharge unique, so I often stop at 4 pieces for capping Defence and the global accuracy bonus. Similar with Unbreakable Guard - I'm usually after the melee defence and can stop at 4 pieces. You'll find the End/Rech pieces are usually the least desired and cheapest on the auction house.

I generally play Defenders (19 Defs, 6 Corrs out of my 50's), but I'm part of a group who play all-Corrupter and all-Defender task forces every week. The all-Corrupter one falls on a civilised 9.30am Sunday here in Australia, whereas the all-Defender one is the not-so-nice 4.30am Monday. So I play a Corrupter with them. 🙂 I've got 6 Corrupters to 50 now, another one was a Kinetics/Energy who I re-rolled from Defender after looking at the potential damage numbers (and low Defender damage boost cap). The others were.... one was part of an Empathy duo with a friend, and one was Elec/Elec rolled as a Corrupter just for a change?

Here's my thoughts on Force Fields, written after the update. ( And Sue gets an oblique reference 🙂 ) There's some good discussion in the thread too, not everyone agreed with my ratings: In brief: - Take Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield and Dispersion Bubble and slot them for max Defence. (LotG + 2 Def IOs for minimal slotting) - Manouvers is a really good idea too, and Grant Invisibility will also help push non-IO'd teammates to the defence cap. (My guide is very much levelling PUGs rather than end-game play) - Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb do -Res now, so take them both.

Yep. Generally Corrupters (and Controllers and MMs) have 75% strength buffs and debuffs compared to Defenders.

I had a Fire/Rad Tanker with 90%+ Resistance to Smashing, Lethal, Fire; Energy & Negative hit 90% with the START Vendor buff or 1 Tanker ATO stack, and Toxic could hit 90% with 2 applications on Healing Flames. Cold and Psi resistance were both over 60%, and grew with tanker ATO stacks and Scaling Resistance from Reactive Defence if I did start losing health. She was very survivable. Melee defence was around 31%, but that was incidental. My guide for resistance builds is here: One trick I've picked up since then for this kind of build (on my Rad/Energy tanker) is Rune of Protection as a god mode - adding the extra 18.75% Resistance to all (29% slotted) not only covers the psi/cold hole but will push everything else over 100%, at which point your resistance cannot be debuffed at all.

A lot of controllers can make their pets more durable through their secondary by giving them resistance or defence buffs (and healing them). Some combos eg Earth/Sonic, Grav/Sonic, anything/Force Fields already have super-sturdy pets. Some like Fire/Kin, less so. Totally agree on the low accuracy of AoE holds. That (and the 240 second recharge) are holdovers from Issue 1 and some design principles that are no longer followed. Dominators are better controllers than Controllers thanks to Domination, but then again that's all they have to keep themselves alive. Controllers get buffs and debuffs from their secondaries too. And if you want to play a super-controlly Controller, try /Rad or /Nature and take the Hold auras (Entangling Vines, Choking Cloud). The support powersets controllers get as secondaries are easily the most mechanically varied sets in the game, so that makes it kind of hard to pin down how Controllers perform across the board.

All Blaster sets get a "sustain" power at level 20 that give you a big end management bonus, and either am absorb barrier or regen bonus to eliminate your downtime between fights. Once you get this your end management problems should go away as a Blaster. Energy Manipulation gets Energise (at level 16) - so grab that and slot for recharge and you'll get a massive -End cost discount (and huge +regen bonus) Time Manipulation gets Temporal Healing at 20 with +50% Recovery (and an absorb shield) Before level 20 the START vendor is your friend: - The Survival Buff modifier gives you +Recovery - Recovery Serum temporary powers give you a boost for 5 minutes You can also enter a supergroup base (like the public ZONE-8888) to use the Buff Empowerment machine to get a +Recovery boost that lasts 90 minutes in exchange for a few pieces of salvage.

Asking an M pedestrian when I hit 50, I find I've usually been active for around 24 hours. That probably takes weeks of real time in most cases, due to playing multiple characters.

I use Basilisk's Gaze pretty often, 4-slotting it for Recovery, Energy/Ranged Def and +7.5% global recharge. Yes, the enhancement values do stop increasing after level 30, but the set bonuses more than make up for that. And Cloud Senses (also caps at 30), Luck of the Gambler (caps at 40) Sets that cap at 20 - I never use them except for special pieces like Achilles Heel -Res proc.

Many of us choose an epic pool with resistance shields, because we've got our defences capped by other means, Psy! 😉 To your question, Bandari: I haven't tested the Ice Elemental, but just had a look at it in City of Data. It has 25% Defence to everything, so it'll be pretty sturdy with the right primary (eg Time, Empathy), but they're the sets that tend to benefit from Power Boost. It provides a hook for those ally only powers like Sonic Resonance's Disruption Field. You get Build Up. You miss out on a Resistance Armor. I'll have to figure out a character to test this on.

Holds and Stuns (mezzes) work on magnitude - it takes a Mag 2 to mez a Minion, 3 to mez a Lieutenant, and 4 to mez a Boss. Most control powers are Mag 3, so they'll immediately hold minions and Lieutenants, but require two stacks of the same type (eg 2 holds, 2 stuns, but not a stun and a hold) to mez a boss. Controllers can deal with bosses by stacking their single target hold and AoE hold, or use their single hold twice. Dominators get Domination which boosts their powers to over Mag 4, so they can immediately hold Bosses, or Stun/Hold an entire group including bosses, while Domination is up. You can build to get it up permanently, but that's expensive and a bit of a project. Controllers get a few extra holds in their secondary sets. Nature's Entangling Aura and Radiation Emission's Choking Cloud do a Mag 2 or 3 pulsing hold around you, allowing you to single shot hold bosses fairly reliably by being near them and stacking your single target hold with the aura. Time and Poison and Trick Arrow get additional single target holds, so you can two-shot hold a boss pretty quickly without having to wait for your hold to recharge. For Controllers, Illusion/Time and Illusion/Rad are popular because those secondaries help your Phantom Army recharge more quickly. (And the visuals are vague enough to be played as telepathy of some kind) Illusion and Mind both get a single target Confuse with very long duration which does not draw aggro - most bosses can be handles solo by applying this twice from a distance or from stealth. Dominator's best secondary for extra mez is Energy, which has a number of Stun punches. I enjoyed Mind/Energy when I played it. Both classes are fun. Try both, and in various variations of each if you like them.

Fulcrum Shift gives you the caster +40% damage, and creates a 30ft aoe around the target that applies a -20% damage debuff on them, and makes them radiate a +20% damage buff to all of their enemies (ie you and your team) So you get +40% damage, and a further +20% for each enemy that Fulcrum Shift hits that's within 20ft of you, up to 10 times! (so +240% max) If you get in close and fire it, you'll see a lot of stacked symbols on your status bar, and get the big juicy boost. Kinetics is a really weird set, but offers high risk, high reward, seat of your pants gameplay!

I've made a couple of effective sappers recently. Ladybird 7 - Elec/Energy Aura/Elec Sentinel (Armored tech hero) Short Circuit slotted for end mod (33% base drain), and slotted Power Drain (35% drain) gives me 136% drain. Purple patch is 80% for +2's, 65% for +3's, and 48% for +4's So the actual drain of these two powers is 109%, 88.4% and 65% for +4's. I was able to get +2s easily, and +3s drained pretty regularly when I added in Ball Lightning and Electric Fences Charge Up adds 31% end drain, so another 20% or so. Thunderous Blast is also does 105% base drain, so that made sapping a lot easier. Cancellicious - Rad/Elec/Elec Defender (Power Disruptor like Scramble from X-Men comics) I slotted all my Elec Blast powers for end drain first over damage, just to see how well that worked. The answer was surprisingly well! Short Circuit (43.75% base) and Ball Lightning (8.75% base) do 105% drain when slotted, or 120%+ with Charge Up. (Defenders do get better values now) +2's are drained, +3's are close to drained. Add in a few single target attacks and that pesky boss is drained, and everyone else is held in Choking Cloud long enough for a second Ball Lightning to drain them off. Could I have picked a better primary for my Defender? Kinetics and Electrical Affinity offer other single target drains in Transference (-56.25% base) and Shock (20%) respectively Thermal drains 16.25% end in an AoE every 2 minutes. Cold's Heat Loss drains 33% in an AoE every 6 minutes. So yes, but Rad was very good for keeping me alive in a group while I Short Circuited them. Choking Cloud held them, Rad Infection made me hard to hit and I can heal myself when I did take damage. Cancellicious often took Alphas on the six Freedom Phalanx Task Forces, and only rarely faceplanted. I'd tried sapper builds in the old universe and always found them lacking. These two on Homecoming had just enough drainage to make it a fun and viable tactic. The key on both cases was being able to survive in melee range. I believe you could also get decent mileage out of a Elec/Elec or Elec/Energy Blaster, and definitely an Elec/Elec Dominator if you built them right.

It's got to be Martial Arts. The Heavy hitter attacks are: MA/* Stalkers get Crane Kick (109), Crippling Axe Kick (117) and Eagle's Claw (162) with Stalker criticals, and Build Up. MA/* Scrappers get the same, with Eagles Claw only doing 142, so lower base damage. */MC Blasters get Eagles Claw (180 + 27 *5 DoT (80%)) with "Furifiance" Damage buff and Reach for the Limit, and Aim from the primary */MA Dominators get Thunder Kick (86) and Spinning Kick (78) with no crits and some bonus Toxic damage from Envenomed Blades I think a Martial Arts Stalker is going to kick the absolute hardest. Pair with Shield Defence to get the damage boost from Against All Odds (and Assault) to kick the hardest!

If you're looking for the safeguard missions to get the Stouthearted badge (or other reasons), you can do any safeguard you like at any level if you unlock Agent Hassell in Steel Canyon via the Villain Disruptor badge https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Agent_Hassell As described here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Villain_Disruptor_Badge - Provost Marchand's story arc is a great way to get this badge unlocked.

Happy Pride! And yes, Paragon City is a lovely special place! 🙂

I will admit, @MoonSheep, after a recent-ish discussion here on slotting for damage vs slotting for debuffs, I made a Rad/Elec Defender and slotted her attacks for End Drain over damage, just to see what it was like. I was pleasantly surprised. 🙂

Not bad! 🙂 If I may add my 2c... Scorpion Shield and Weave are under-slotted, you should get them to the ED cap of +58% from enhancements. So at least Def, Def/End, Def/End/Rech and Def/+Recharge from Luck of the Gambler maybe? Take that slot out of Combat Jumping, it just needs the +Recharge unique, because its base defence values are tiny. Tactics could lose a few slots maybe, maybe Seeker Drones too? I'm not sure if Caltrops could gain a few slots to be slotted as a damage power. It is effectively a rain power like Ice Storm or Rain of Fire, and could help compensate for your lack of AoE and nukes? And X-Ray Beam - can you replace the 2 Acc and 2 Dam with 4 Acc/Dam set IOs from different sets? You'll get better results that way.

Oh! My! Goddess! I did the Croatoa Part 4 arc last night with these two powers slotted with 4 damage procs each, and it was amazing! 🙂 I know this isn't exactly a new idea, but it was the first time I've tried it out for myself. Still have to add Shield Breaker, and I'll definitely try the Knockdown proc when I get to 50. I've done Theft of Essence in Dark Armor's heal before. Makes sense that it would be equally good in Radiation Therapy - I'll try that if I do develop end issues. Thanks for the good advice!

I'm playing a Rad Armor tanker for the first time in a while, and looking at both Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero. Both have the option to hold a number of damage procs and become a mini-nuke (Perfect Zinger, Touch of Nictus or Touch of Lady Grey, and Obliteration and Eradication, with a purple in there later) These mini-nukes can deliver up to 280 damage (4 procs going off), enough to almost kill all minions, which is not bad. (Blaster Nova for comparison is 250 damage, doubled when slotted) The proc activation chances are: Radiation Therapy: 89% (no slotting for recharge) 64% (slotted with two Heal/Rech's) Ground Zero: 166% (no slotting for recharge) 95% (slotted with 2 boosted recharge IOs) Ground Zero looks like I'll go with the 2xRecharge, 4xDamage proc slotting. It has an accuracy of 1.2 which with various set bonuses and Focussed Accuracy, looks like enough. The base damage could also be boosted, since its 100 or so when you include the DoT. I'm sacrificing the chance to boost my teammate heal here. Radiation Therapy... hmm. I'm giving up a source of healing and end management, although I don't seem to be short of either after my last respec. I'll probably go for the 4 damage procs, plus the Armageddon one in there, and maybe a heal IO. It has accuracy of 3.0, so no need to worry about that! Any feedback on this? Has anyone tried slotting these powers for heal or friendly procs and liked it? What about -Res procs? - Ground Zero could take an Achilles Heel. And also Shield Breaker for extra damage.

My pleasure! I'm a firm believer that you can make anything work in this game 🙂

Challenge accepted! 🙂 Depending on how attached you are to Traps, you could try a Blaster with Rad Blast/Martial Combat. You get four decent melee attacks that way, although Ki Push is a bit weird looking and Eagles Claw on Blasters doesn't have an alternate punch animation, so you have to use the super-acrobatic backflip one. Also, on a Blaster, X-Ray Beam is on a 8 second recharge instead of a 4 second recharge, and thus packs a lot more punch for the same animation time (and procs better) Sticking with Rad/Traps though: X-Ray Beam is on a 4 second recharge, so any 3.5/minute damage proc in there has a 23% chance to go off. That's 23%*71 = 16.3 damage per proc as opposed to 0.38 (enhancement)* 41 (base damage) * 1.25 (scourge bonus) = 19 damage per damage enhancement. So slot X-Ray Beam for ED-damage levels and 2 damage procs, and build up as much global +Rech as you can. You could frankenslot with 2 x Acc/Damage and 2 x something else/Damage, but... 1) You probably wont need End redux in it. 2) You don't want to slot it for recharge because that makes the proc rate drop. 3 x Scourging Blast would give you a good +Rech bonus, but 5 out of 6 pieces add recharge to the power. So slot X-Ray Beam with 4 x Acc/Dam and the Lady Gray and Shield Breaker damage procs. Aim, this works so well with the Gaussian +Build Up proc, which turns it from +50% damage to +30% damage. Slot the whole set for +2.5% Defence to all positions. For other melee attacks, Fighting is OK with all three powers. Base damage levels are: Boxing: 40 Kick: 45 Cross Punch: 67 Crushing Impact x 5 in Boxing and Kick, with a FF +Recharge in Kick should work, with Obliteration x 6 in Cross Punch. Air Superiority is another excellent melee pool attack - base damage 41 and guaranteed knockdown! Slot with 5 x Crushing Impact and FF +Rech I'd take at least two other Rad Blast powers and slot them with 3 x Scourging Blast each for the global +Rech, and then not have them in your tray. Traps gives you a great chance to build for capped defences, so add in Manouvers with a LotG unique and capped defence. Do the same for FF Generator. Take Tactics and you can have Vengeance as another LotG mule. Add in Combat Jumping as another LotG mule, and Weave, and you're done. Your base def should be 16% (FFG) + 6% (Weave) + 4% (Manouvers) + 2.5% (Combat Jumping) + 6% (Steadfast and Glad Armor in Tough) = 34.5% - easy-ish to get the other 10% in set bonuses! You'll get by fine on temp travel powers. I often just use Athletic Run and Sprint these days, with a jet pack for special occasions So to summarise: - Rad Blast --- XRay Beam with 4 x Acc/Dam and two damage procs --- Aim, full set of Gaussian's Synchronised Fire Control --- Two other powers 3 slotted with Scourging Blast for the global +Rech, never used - Fighting - take all 5 powers! - Leadership, Manouvers, Tactics and Vengeance And two of: - Combat Jumping - Hasten - Air Superiority Happy blasting!

This is one of the extremely rare occasions where Force Field and Sonic Resonance's cage powers are useful.

Resistance sets I always imagine attacks are hitting my character and bouncing off or getting absorbed. My Elec Brute was made of energy like Marvel's Wonder Man. My last Fire Tanker had a force field that evaporates bullets as they hit as well as having a hard energy shield if you punched her. Defence sets, I'll head-cannon as either attacks hit and do nothing, or dodging. My Energy Aura Sentinel had a "magnetic cocoon" from her armor. My /SR catgirl Stalker was just very fast and hard to hit like Spidey. My Shield Scrapper had a shield and was acrobatic and good at dodging, so a bit of both. Even with squishies where I build for defence via Weave, Manouvers and IOs: some of them are good evasive fliers like Angel from X-Men or acrobatic like Gambit (so attacks miss), some have a force field like Green Lantern or medium level invulnerability (so attacks bounce off). ( More than once I've built a solar-powered Superman type Blaster who's invulnerability is down, and grows back over time due to our planet's "stupid weak sun" 🙂 ) The idea of toughness making attacks miss goes back to original D&D, where wearing Plate Mail armor made you harder to hit rather than softening blows that do land. Its an odd decision, but it does kind of work still, which Is why I guess its still around in games.

Blasters survive using active defence, ie mezzes or just straight out damage. Fire Blast is rough for this solo, you can aggro a big group without reducing the incoming damage at all - no knockback, end drain or -To Hit or anything before they fall. You do have a hold in Atomic (Positron Cell), but it's single target. Try lowering the group size, like people have said. Even try +2/x1 instead, a held lieutenant is doing nothing to you, even if you take a bit longer to defeat them. And at the START vendor, pick up Plasmatic Taser and Stun Grenade to help you deal with double groups via knockback and stun while you're levelling. The free Nemesis staff is good for this too. You can work towards solid defences numbers, but it takes time. Tough (with 2 unique IOs for +Defence), Weave (slotted) and Manouvers (slotted) give you just 15% defence or so. This is a good start, but you'll really want to pile on the set bonuses to boost this. Thunderstrike x6 and Artillery x6 in your attacks is a good cheapish start to doing this. Make sure you've got your sustain power (Metabolic Acceleration) - your aim should be to survive any fight a bit beaten up, and then recover very quickly between groups. Open but holding the toughest target (eg a Lt.), defeat the others while keeping the Lt. held, and then finish them off.