nebber

Endgame, and duoing, a well-built tanker should be very survivable and good at gathering mobs for AOEs and debuffs. So a complimentary defender would be one that speeds up the killing (...ahem, "arresting") rate by damage/speed buffs and/or resistance debuffs, and who does appreciable amounts of damage themselves. Heal sets (like empathy) and def/res sets (like force fields) sadly aren't as valuable for endgame. My buddy and I ran brute & defender/corruptor duos, which is similar to what you are proposing. We ran Rad, Time, and Kinetics. All of these are good in their own way. Rad is a well-rounder and kinda 'easy mode'. Fire off accelerate metabolism when it's up, initiate fights with envenerating field for the -res, spend most of your time blasting, mash heal button if anyone is hurt. It works well from a distance so you can pick a blast set with cones and targeted AOEs - fire and ice pair well, sonic is a classic pairing with more of a single target focus, but you can stack crazy -res on hard targets. Other bonus of rad is the powerful -regen in lingering radiation, makes AV fights much faster. Time brings a fairly good ally damage buff, good speed buffs (so you & your teams' big attacks are back sooner), an okay res debuff (fairly long recharge on it), good defense boost (this would be complimentary to the fire tanks resistance-based shields). It's slightly more clicky/busy with the primary relative to rad, but you can still spend a lot of time blasting. Like rad, works well with ice and fire. Dual pistols is another popular / good option. Kinetics is, like, extreme mode. Running around speed boosted and damage capped from fulcrum = bringing the pain, i'd say kin brought the fastest clear times of all the duos we ran. It is very busy as a primary, less time to blast when you are fulcruming, siphoning speed, hitting transference because your blue bar keeps emptying, and mashing the heal because the set offers little def/res buffs. I prefer corruptors over def for kin - you get more damage output. Kinetics likes being close to the mobs so having sets with PBAOEs/targeted AOEs is preferable over cones. Rad blast is a very good pairing - easy to use in melee, def helps your kin powers hit, fair damage, good -res/ dmg proc options. Fire is another classic pairing, I'd say -- If you want to be able to duo AVs easily, I'd lean torwards rad. If you want to blow through large mobs quickly, kinetics. If you want to be kinda balanced between the two and also provide a bit more protection for your tank/team, then time.

Small tip on the rad side of things - Irradiate does such little damage that slotting for mitigation / debuff over damage might be better for soloing. Mine is slotted-- Acc IO (endgame, this can be switched to a +5 acc/dmg PBAOE IO or a superior avalance acc/dmg) Achilles' heel - chance for res debuff Fury of the gladiator - chance for res debuff Overwhelming force - dmg/chance for knockdown Avalanche - recharge/chance for knockdown One damage proc (take your pick, I like the lady grey neg nrg) I almost always open with his on my rad/kin corruptor, on average a third or so of those hit get knocked down, and close to half get resistance debuffed. Great setup for your nuke.

My rad/son def has PB and AM. Just tested and found: PB does not boost AM's recovery rate or damage buff. It does boost movement speed for entire duration of AM. My hover went from 42mph plain AM to 48mph PB+AM. It does boost the status effect resistance for the entire duration of AM - I went from 30% duration to 18% duration. ...my primary use of PB on Rad is to make my heal and def supercharged for 15sec for those 'oh shit' moments.

Elec isn't the highest damage on a defender, but it has good synergy with kinetics. A good kin def is right in the middle of the mobs to fire off fulcrum shifts and transfusion/transference,. Since Elec's two AOEs are PBAOE and targeted AOE, these are well suited to using in the middle of mobs, as opposed to e.g. having to run back and forth to fire off a cone. There is also the sapping synergy. It can be helpful/powerful in some instances, but not so much on level 50 teams where everyone is steamrolling and it doesn't matter if the enemy has an empty blue bar or not. My build is a sapper build and I enjoy it, because it does that really well. If I were to change it to get more damage out of it... well, he still wouldn't be very good at damage. So, yeah, I know you asked for an OP build, but OP in what way? What are you looking to achieve? Solo-friendly or team-friendly? Will you be exemplaring to run lower level content or playing endgame? Do you want to maximize damage and buff, or surivability? Want to sap like no other build can match? On a team, I'd argue that a kin defender's secondary is mostly irrelevant. Kinetics is active and clicky, cutting into the time you can spend attacking. If you're doing you job to make sure the blasters/brutes/scrappers/etc are speed-boosted and damage-capped with fulcrum, then they will be wiping the mobs off the face of the earth stupidly quick, so it doesn't really matter if you picked a secondary where your AOE does 200 dmg as opposed to another one where it does 150 dmg. If you're wanting a OP solo kinetic... then i'd say, pick something new. Kin corruptors do more damage with the higher damage cap and scourge. Fire/Kin is very tank-magey, but you can also do well with a blast set that is damage proc friendly--like ice, DP, rad, or water. Once you're at damage cap with fulcrum, then the only way to get additional damage is via procs or res debuffs.

Have I got a build for you! Rad/nrg. Mine lives in melee and it is so. much. fun. I wish I hadn't used double XP on him because he was such a joy to play through the levels. I thought playing a fully-melee blaster was going to be a bit of a foolish gimmick, but he turned out so satisfying and contributes greatly to teams. /Energy for blapping is so good in so many ways. Crunchy, hard-hitting attacks -- Energy Punch and Bonesmasher at the core, with awesome DPA, and Power Thrust with a KB2KD is also a great blappy-attack. Energize is blue bar friendly and gives stun protection. Rad has quick activating AOEs you can use in melee -- Irradiate (PBAOE) and Neutron Bomb (Targeted AOE). Nuke is also PBAOE. I always jump straight in and open with Irradiate as the 'softener' which has two -res procs, the blaster status protection proc, and does -DEF. Launch Neutron Bomb, then start unloading the punches on whatever's still standing. At lower levels my melee attack chain includes Cross Punch and Neutrino Bolt. At higher levels, Total Focus. Survivability-wise, he does fine enough solo. Scorpion shield for high S/L/E defense, good regen rates from Energize, and lots of ST disorients/knockdowns for hard targets. You can skip Clarion and take Barrier because status protection is well covered between CJ, acrobatics, energize, and +status proc from Defiant Barrage in Irradiate. In a team setting I can play even more aggressively in melee, and take great joy punching away in the thick of it with the scrappers/tanks/brutes. Build:

Good ol' rad/sonic defender. The builds above are speed/leaping, but I'd mention I really like hoverfighting on rad; hover & evasive manuevers & accelerate metab makes for some really good hover speeds, and if you combine this with capped ranged defence, you can rain down from above with impunity. Regarding ST damage, there are many in the school of skipping Shout due to the long animation time, and use proc'ed out Screech to increase DPS. Proc'ed Dominate in Psychic mastery can also hit hard. But, I found the attack chains using those to be awkward, and not to mention Screech/Dominate can't be used at lower levels, and I do exemplared content with my rad/son a lot. So I like my simple ol' shriek-scream-shriek-shout ST chain, works good at all levels and takes down AVs & GMs just fine solo. I did Soul Mastery because I really like Power Boost -- it turns radiant aura from an OK heal to a good heal. Rad is a very debuffy-focused set but sometimes when you or a teammate is in the red, your debuffs don't mean much anymore and a boosted heal can save you/them from the brink. PB also boosts the -def / -tohit of rad infection. Also worth mentioning, I did a lot of experiments on the test server on incarnates and had the following discoveries-- -Reactive Radial Interface (the extra damage) ended up being better than Reactive Core (more -res) in Pylon testing. Diminishing returns on -res, methinks. -The drone Lore pets are great as a rad flyer, they survive better as they don't charge like melee Lore pets and do -regen to stack with lingering radiation on AVs/GMs. Here's my build: https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=1402&c=691&a=1382&f=HEX&dc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

Wow, someone remembers Lions Den! I was a member, but not too long after I joined them the group collectively rage-quit in response to the i13 PVP changes. They recruited me after seeing me blapping down villains in Sirens Call... sigh, just got a little nostalgic for what fun PVP times those were, with the zone full, and bounties, and pushing each side back to their bases.

Fun! I was too slow on your blaster giveaway but I'm getting in on this. I think there are some high overestimations here of a) how many people read the forums closely enough to have seen this b) need that amount of influence and c) swallow their pride and ask for it. I'm guessing 1.98 billion. Because, 99 people have asked but I ain't one.

Yep, that is, in fact, a psychic/devices build, no doubt about it. ...do you have a question?

Force Feedback has a quite low proc rate, 2ppm, compared to the more standard 3.5ppm for damage procs / 4.5ppm for purple procs. Also only lasts 5 seconds when triggered, so that limits how much you can stack it. Since you've got your ST attacks with the FF proc slotted for recharge, this also drops proc rate in those. Per your slotting, looks like your power burst has a 30% chance of procing FF; snipe: 50%; and torrent 21% chance per target (so higher chance with more targets hit). Looks like the numbers back up your observation - the proc not really making you a recharge machine.

I played with spring attack on my rad/nrg blapper and found out there is a longstanding bug where it is not counting damage enh + dmg procs (see below), so I respeced out of it. Did you know about this?

My guess is: Mids thinks you are at damage cap with either aim or buildup, because if you have the yellow dots 'on' in sniper blast and tactics, then it is assuming the +DMG procs in those attacks are active in calculating your damage. 100% base damage + 127% dmg in Nova enh (including Intution Alpha effect) +100% decimation chance for buildup + 100% dmg Gaussians chance for buildup + 10.5% dmg Leadership Assault + 10% dmg Assault Core Embodiment + whatever other global dmg bonuses you have from sets = a number close enough to the 500% damage cap for blasters, so that either the +62.5% of Aim or +100% of buildup takes you to the cap. In reality, the chances of both procs being active at the same time are very, very low. Those procs only last 5 seconds each when they fire. If you untick both those yellow buttons, it should show Nova doing 250 dmg as you've slotted it, with incarnates active. Then 302 damage with Aim active, and 333 with Buildup active. Both Aim and Buildup active, 385 dmg. The thing is with those +DMG procs, you have very little control of when they land, especially the Gaussian's in tactics. It might be in the middle of blasting, it might be between mobs. I'd suggest that you take both Aim and Buildup, and have the gaussians proc in aim instead of tactics. If the proc fires when you hit aim, then you have a whopping +162.5% dmg for those first 5 seconds. And you are ready to use it, because, if you just popped aim it is with the intention of making your next few attacks hit harder. Your +perception IO can sit in Tactics where it's always on. Having both Aim and BU gives you options. Big mob you really want to take out quickly - pop both. Moving quickly from mob to mob - alternate aim / BU as they recharge. Get tohit debuffed like crazy? Then having Aim in addition to BU will be your ticket to smackdown that annoying debuffer.

My Mids shows -- Buildup: +20% tohit, +100% damagebuff. Aim: +50% tohit, +62.5% damagebufff. You can look at the powers' numbers in greater detail if you chose 'Data View' - hit control-D when hovering the mouse over a power. Quite helpful for when the little summary box doesn't tell you everything you need to know.

Hover's still nice on nrg blast so that you knock them down to the ground instead of back. If stealthing low level missions is important and you think it'll come up often, then all good. On my flier I can usually get by with just a stealth IO in a prestige sprint and fly by the ceiling to avoid detection... unless it's a purple cave. I think if you are capped at range def and hoverblasting, yeah, power boost isn't doing too much for you. Might be nice to click for a def boost in a 'this is gonna hurt' situation... but otherwise not something to click every time it's up. Build-up is just too good to skip on a Blaster though... front-loading damage is an important tactic. Build-up, Aim, Nova, and less of the mob is going to be getting back up tell you their opinion on being Nova'd. I'd value it over super speed, power boost, or power push in your build. My two cents.

Looks like you built it well to be at S/L res cap and nearly capped ranged defence. Wondering about your power picks -- is your playstyle hover blaster? I see hover and afterburner, but wondering why superspeed is there too. What do you like having powerboost for? the KB increase or the slight defense boost? If I were to only pick one out of two between build up and aim, it'd be buildup for the extra damage. Energize is really good at reducing end consumption. So much so that my two /nrg blasters don't need to slot out stamina nor use miracle / other recovery procs. So those two slots you have in health & stamina could probably be put elsewhere without causing end problems. In terms of being less clicky, have you thought about devices or martial as a secondary? those have +dmg / +acc as toggles/passives. I know /nrg is great though so if ya wanna roll with that, more power to you,

My tankiest end-game blaster is my fire/nrg. Fighting pool, built to 40% S/L/Ranged def, and took barrier destiny. T4 barrier is +5% def min so I'm always at softcap for S/L/R when it's on, and the huge inital +DEF and +RES boost when it's just activated lets me jump into a +4/8 spawn and eat the alpha easily. I do quite well without clarion, I cover mez protection by leaping pool (CJ for immob, acro for holds) and tactics for fear resistance. I have the Defiant Barrage +status protection proc slotted in fireball, and I always open with fireball -- if it hits multiple targets it has a high chance of granting the extra mez protection. Also, the capped ranged defence helps dodge a lot of status effect attacks in the first place. Energize from /nrg secondary gives stun protection, so without that, you might get stunned every now and again, but then keep defiance-blasting away anyway.

Identity crisis: n. a period of uncertainty and confusion in which a person's sense of identity becomes insecure, typically due to a change in their expected aims or role in society. I don't feel any uncertainty or confusion in playing a blaster with a focus on melee powers. I feel exhilaration.

Fire/NRG is the bomb, so many good ways of playing it. I do love my blapping, whichever poor dudes survive the fireball/BoF opener and charge me get bonesmasher'd and/or power-thrust'd, and I get giddy about it each time.

So I keep thinking about this thread, because I keep wondering how much maximising +DMG set bonuses really adds to performance, or if it's diminishing returns (especially at endgame). I decided to number crunch the total damage in different scenerios, and then see how much more damage the set bonuses deliver. So here's a table of the damage of blaze, first base damage, then how much extra damage you would get from enhancements and various +dmg powers, and then how much damage from varying levels of global set bonuses. Both at lvl 50 and lvl 24. To keep things even I've assumed that defiance is giving a 20% buff on average in all scenerios. Lvl Base dmg Enh Assault (leadership) defiance Build Up Aim T4 Musc Alpha T4 assault (passive) t4 assault on / 5 stacks global bonus global bonus global bonus global bonus - 100% 95% 10.50% 20% 100% 25% 35% 10% 75% 10% 20% 40% 50% 50 170 161.5 17.85 42.5 170 106.25 59.5 17 127.5 16.15 42.5 68 85 24 101 95.95 10.605 25.25 170 63.125 - - - 9.595 25.25 40.4 42.5 Let's look at the 'extreme' level 50 case - every +DMG power active (leadership/assault, defiance at 20%, build up, aim, alpha, T4 assault on with 5 stacks): blaze damage with 20% global dmg bonus - 915 blaze damage with 50% global dmg bonus - 957 difference (42 damage, 4.4%) ....Compare this to a level 54 leut hp of 867 - he's one-shotted either way. Then a 'non-buffed' level 50 case - T4 assault off and no build up/aim. Active +dmg powers: assault/leadership, alpha, T4 assault passive. blaze damage with 20% global dmg bonus - 451 blaze damage with 50% global dmg bonus - 493 difference (42 damage, 8.6%) So two shots of blaze either way to defeat a leut, and one shot either way for a minion (436 hp). Exemplaring down to lvl 24, then incarnates are no longer in play and the global set bonuses drop a bit. 'Extreme' level 24 case - leadership/assault, defiance at 20%, build up, aim: blaze damage with 10% global dmg bonus - 476 blaze damage with 40% global dmg bonus - 506 difference (30 damage, 6.1%) 'non-buffed' level 50 case - leadership/assault, defiance at 20%: blaze damage with 10% global dmg bonus - 242 blaze damage with 40% global dmg bonus - 273 difference (30 damage, 11.3%) HP for leuts/minions at lvl 28 (+4 to lvl 24) are 538 / 270. The increase in damage in the non-buffed case with higher global bonuses is now looking more significant (>10%) and is the difference between one-shotting a minion with blaze or not. So there you have it, some numbers to help you make your decision on whether maxing out +DMG bonuses is worth it, at the expense of other bonuses.

I'm counting assault too in my total, rest is set bonuses. Splitting the Superior Defiant Barrage into 2 IOs each across 3 powers each gets 4% damage three times over. My three single target attacks are 4 IOs Devastation (3% +dmg) and 2 IOs Superior Defiant Barrage. The other Blaster IO set (Blasters Wraith) and Apocolapyse got me the other 4% bonuses. Obliteration and Overwhelming force give the other two 3% bonuses. Then scrapped together 4x 2.5% bonuses (3x javellin volley 4 slotted, 1x touch of death 4 slotted) and 4x 2% bonuses (3x adjusted targeting 2-slotted, 1x red fortune 4-slotted). Maybe it's easier to see this in my build in mids: https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=1528&c=686&a=1372&f=HEX&dc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

My fire/energy main has two builds. The first was crafted to get the highest possible +DMG set bonuses I could (+73.5% total) and has mediocre defence as the ying to its yang. The second build has softcapped S/L/E/ranged def and 28.5% +DMG. The second build is way better for most content. While the first one can do slightly more raw damage, when using that I have to spend more time jousting, managing inspirations to keep me alive, and recovering between mobs. Second build is nonstop pew-pew-pew, and I set it up with the macros to automatically combine insps to make reds, which is use unreservedly - compared to the other build where I have to hoarde purples/greens for the 'uh-oh' moments. So the damage output per time is probably no different between builds when taking into account the associated playstyles. The first build can be better in some situations - like, the higher +DMG bonus can make a bigger difference when exemplaring at lower levels. If the team is really good at holding aggro (or steamrolling) then I could use either build easily.

I'm not the best at procs or dual pistols, so i'll leave it to someone more clever to chime in on how to best proc the DP attacks. Looking at your time slotting-- Single-slotting Farsight i think is undervaluing one of the best powers in time's set... if you add two membrane hami-Os you'll up the defence & to-hit of you and your team. The extra to-hit will help your attacks land, as you've no other to-hit bonuses and aren't slotting accuracy in many attacks, in favor of procs. Distortion field is great for procs, I've got three hold damage procs & one slow damage proc in it. It rolls for procs when you drop it and then again every 10 seconds (I think?) when it's up. Re: incarnates-- Alpha +damage does noticeably improve damage output. I'd pick musculature core for the 45% dmg boost, unless there was another bonus in intuition you wanted? Assault radial is better than core for a defender, yes.... but no it's not a huge damage boost. I did pylon tests on my rad/sonic def and my average time to beat the pylon went from 4:47 to 4:21 with assault on.

The capped S/L/F/C def and resistance is pretty impressive, on paper... but I wonder how much of this is build is to get to a 'safety state' at the expense of damage and team usefulness. One of the most fun things about kinetics, to me, is the crazy pace and boom-all-or-nothing swings. Your one-slotting of transfusion, transference, and fulcrum makes the baby kinjesus cry. The kin-way to me is that you don't have to go all max-defensey-resistancy, its that you go all squishy-crazy and if you go in the red, you mash your heal and you're back up again at full health to keep the roller coaster going. You should be all fulcruming and siphoning while in the thick of it... bring big damage buffs, bring big heals... this is what a team wants of a kin. In my build, transfusion is maxed out for heal/recharge. Transference is maxed out for end/recharge. Fulcrum is maxed out for recharge. And siphon speed is maxed out for recharge so that I can spam that for more recharge so that fulcrum and transferencefusion is recharged. Gotta go fast. Kin/Elec is also one of the best sapper builds in the game. You can go all-in on this... or not. I did, and it's... cute. There are occasions where you can take a mob's endurance to zero and halt their recovery so they stand around doing nothing. Occassionally handy, usually useless in endgame where the enemies pose no real threat so it doesnt matter if they are blue-drained or not. It was a great form of damage mitigation while leveling in a duo. I'd go more into some of the weird choices in your build (four-slotted-for-recharge hasten... ummm) but the first question is, how do you play and what do you want to be effective at? Soloing? Team support? sapping? fire farm support? exemplaring? That'll better dictate where to go with your build.

Cool. Well then, assault doublehit and reactive DoT look like the way to go for my first T4s, since I'll see the most difference with those when I'm solo. Then once I'm further along I can add in an alternate T3 interface and switch according to team composition. Also would be good to switch to support hybrid when teaming. I'll be needing a lot of incarnate salvage, it seems! I tried Longbow first then Robotic Drones on test. I noticed the Longbow bigguns still charges straight on up to his target even though he's ranged, so that may make him more susceptible to an AV swatting him down. I fight from height with Hover (and 45% ranged def) so I thought I'd try the drones -- even though they have worse DPS, they fly too. I was pleased to see they did stick by me and so were in the range of my AOE heal, and EF's -tohit + maneuvers running helped them avoid hits. Pylon test, three runs each, previous chain, musc T4+assault doublehit on+reactive DoT, plus Lores: Core Longbow: 0:52 average Core Drones: 0:54 average Today I learned how OP Lore can be against high HP foes. They helped me kill Pylons in under a minute, as compared to 4-5min solo. Like, wow. Here I was fretting over the difference in Lore DPS numbers, but when it was me vs. a 30k HP target, the practical difference in kill time between a mid-range and low DPS Lore was, on average, two seconds. Two seconds! Maybe something about the -res of rad/sonic makes Lore DPS differences less signifcant? So I like the drones. Plus they fit my theme, as I'm in a flying robo suit. Drones are cool.