MonteCarla

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.

Sentinels get a big glowing crosshair under their targets when their Inherent kicks in. You can't customise it and it could be as immersion-breaking as the Domination rainbow.

I had a Rad/Fire Blaster who was very melee-centric. Hot Feet, Cauterizing Aura, Irradiate and Neutron Bomb, Combust and Fire Sword Circle all providing area damage. Defensively I relied on Melee Defence from Obliteration sets in all of them, and slows in Hot Feet so enemies spent longer running away without attacking. I doubt I skipped Cosmic Burst - it is really good, but the emphasis was on melee attacks. I also made a melee Elec/Elec blaster with the aim of using Thunderstrike with the Knockdown IO and end drain to keep enemies close but harmless. (And Electric Fences to keep them there once drained.) I also started slotting heal procs wherever I could, both Power Transfer and Call of the Sandman in the melee attacks. It wasn't super-effective, but a fun experiment.

I wrote a guide on Force Fields after the recent changes. I'd stand by most of what I said still, except I probably talk down Damping Bubble too much. To answer your questions. Essential Powers: Deflection Shield, Insulation Shield, Dispersion Bubble Good Powers: Force Bomb, Repulsion Bolt (these two do -res debuffs now), Damping Bubble Don't Take Repulsion Field (just not awesome, maybe...?) Personal Force Field (its not hard to hit the Def cap and be able to attack) Detention Field (very situational use, slows teams down) I paired it with Sonic (for extra offensive debuffs) or Beam Rifle (because its sci-fi) or Psychic Blast (not a great choice) but really anything will work. FF is a passive buff set, giving you lots of time to blast. And do take Manouvers. By level 13 you can have 3-slotted Dispersion Bubble, Manouvers, and the two ally shields, giving your team like +42% Defence?

Pink Topaz - Earth/Energy/Energy Dominator Perma-dom with enormous lockdown powers and full Energy Blast and Energy Melee powers except the nuke, and solid defences. She's a space cop with a willpowered jewel weapon and strong preference for her favorite color. Personality wise she's a stiff-necked stickler for the rules, and "hmmf's" her way through teamups, especially if villians are involved. She's fully incarnated out, but I still get her out for Shard Task Forces. Abraxii - Illusion/Pain/Psi(?) Controller She was my first character to use the teleport-to-teammate bind for a quick spot heal on someone several rooms away. Combined with Illusion's Phantom Army, Omnipresence was one of her powers - being able to be in multiple places at once. And it was fun being a sweet helpful demon who just loves helping mortals. Will probably remake her as Illusion/Empathy at some point. Eva Sparkles - Energy/Energy/Force Blaster Defence soft-capped blaster with a powerful punch. A Dale Arden-esque sidekick/romantic interest who receives massive energy powers and becomes her own hero. I really got my Captain Marvel on here. Jenny Foxgloves - Nature/Ice/Psi Defender The hybrid result of a powerful but dumb nature spirit, and the human who wears the gloves in which she resides. A whole lot of lockdown with Entangling Aura and single target holds, and some of the best visual effects in the game from Nature Affinity. I'd regularly do my crafting in Atlas Park opposite Ms Liberty in a Lifegiving Spores patch, and have people come and chat after coming to see what the glowing mushroom ring was.

I run PUG Task Forces with levelling characters, usually do the weekly task force and whatever else takes my fancy. I set the difficulty level based on how many support characters there are. I count the Defenders, Corrupters, Controller and Masterminds and look at their support powersets and can tell how hard it's going to be from that. 4 Supporters? We can probably run at +3 easy! Radiation Emission's an odd set. It doesn't have a big tangible benefit like others do. (Force Fields = yay! No more damage, Kinetics = yay! Free end for everyone!) But, it takes the edge off everything. Your teammates get some free end and recharge, which can make a Synapse or Yin much more bearable. You do provide layered safety via a -To Hit toggle, unreliable hold, -damage toggle and a weak but reliable heal. So its hard to feel your contribution. Solo, your safety's not guaranteed. But, every Defender (and other supporter) on a team is worth it. And if you ever get on an all-Defender team, you'll really feel it!

Wow, how did I miss Unrelenting? I guess because I took Presence once, on my first Sentinel to get a taunt. How does it work exactly? You get the buffs if you click it while you're alive, but if you're KO'd it rezzes you first (at half health) and then gives you the buffs? And yeah, I suppose I omitted Wall of Force because I'm not that impressed with it, @Uun It's low damage and 33% chance of knockback, so it doesn't do either of it's things well. I've taken it on my tank but probably wont do so again.