Sir Myshkin

You will miss Ice Storm. With a decent amount of recharge it’ll be possible for you to Ice Storm+Atom Smasher one spawn and Blizzard the next. I personally don’t stack them because those two rain patches added significantly to your survival by putting spawns into a panic and slowing them down. As for Aim, considering the typical recharge achieved and the comparably lower boost than to BU (Ionize), I personally take Assault instead as it provides equal (or better, depending on the AT, and I’m usually grabbing Tactics anyway) long term value over Aim. Not as bursty of course... but neither is Aim really. This is 100% preference, but if it’s a question of value/space, I don’t personally force it into a build; popping a red is just a simpler, often better choice. Some other build suggestions: Negatron is a really strong melee hitter, if you’re going to take it it’s kind of worth making it useful (and it can take Achilles Heel proc which can help ST solo if you want). Positron Cell is a nice way to stack mag on holds, but is garbage (comparatively) for damage. I’d only use a 4 piece of Basilisk for the hold duration and the 7.5% Rech bonus. Use it as a hold for control and stacking on bosses. Slotting up Beta Decay beyond an End Redux isn’t worth it (opinion). It will get detoggled quite often, so it’s not a power you want to rely on for survival. Nice to have obviously, use it, but don’t bank on it. Ice Blast, Bitter Ice Blast, and Bitter Freeze Ray (if I’m recalling correctly) are you core three high DPA blasts. These plus Negatron will give you a gapless attack chain without a ton of Rech investment needed, and are the strongest chain of attack options. In regards to your Influence concerns, run Task Forces and use the merits to cash out for Converters and sell them on the Market for 90,000 a piece and you’ll build up a good supply of Inf quickly. Eventually you can start using those converters on crafted enhancements and convert into the stuff you want/need. It’s possible to have a 600million build started from zero influence just on cashing merits for converters/boosters. Have fun with the project, Ice/Atomic is one of my top favorite builds 🙂

Honestly this seems like a step in the wrong direction to me. If there’s players who really want the power-creep level of difficulty, then revert to an SO build and continue playing the content in the existing system, because that is all this method of adjustment is doing. Frankly reverting to SO builds is realistically the “challenge” setting at this point from a numbers standpoint. People may not like that answer, but the only change going forward for this game that makes content “more difficult” is going to be new mechanics and more diversified enemy groups with more potent buffs/debuffs, not stats changes. From my perspective this is what it appears the O.G. Devs were working towards. Diversifying and building stronger enemy groups that would better challenge our “high spec” IO builds more effectively. Essentially “restore” balance to the game by having two measurements of power. SO builds from the core game, and IO builds for the end game.

It comes down to necessity in the build more than anything. In the Fire/FF build that was a personal build for one of my own characters that I didn't want to involve Hasten, but the need for some of that additional global has to exist somewhere. In the Fire/Dark/Psi build, that one was purpose built for testing proc triggers in toggles, but also needed to be strong enough to survive sitting in a spawn for long periods of time so a big shift in over-packing WoC and HF. It comes down to the secondary that was paired with it, and the reason it existed in the first place. You could easily toss a bunch of procs in there for sure. And, I can't even tell you how many times I've built, rebuilt, modified, altered, shifted, changed, and stressed over that Fire/FF build trying to squeeze every last ounce of juice out of it.

Say this up front: Play what you find fun, that's all that matters. I'm going to revert back to your first build as that's where you started and do a little "teach a man to fish" moment here since I think some things might have gotten missed when you looked into the start of your project. When building for a proc-based build there's a handful of "regulations" you need to account for: Build for accuracy. You want to play in the +4 realm, then you need 95% accuracy to do this. Since you're using Mid's, hop into your settings and change your base to-hit value to 39% so that your numbers will accurately reflect going forward. You'll need to grab a few global accuracy bonuses, Tactics, probably the Kismet +ToHit to achieve this, you may even need to accommodate slotting in the power itself for some combination of Accuracy enhancement. Build for max damage potential. The whole point behind packing in those damage procs is MAXIMUM EFFORT in your build. Get the most out of damage enhancement, then pack in the procs after the fact. One key thing that I heavily disagree with Hjarki on is the value of procs in a Melee build. You don't need perma Hasten in every build, you don't need to pack in capped resistances and capped defenses to every possible moving type to have a fun and functional build. Some of them can get it, that's great, but not in every single build ever. Be endurance manageable/neutral as much as possible. Stacking the above two points into this one, my rule-of-thumb for proc'ing out attacks as 2 slots for enhancement, 4 slots for procs. Those first two slots are your opportunity to maximize Acc/Dam/End. If you have a strong enough amount of Acc, then you can focus on Dam/End. Some attacks are really lot cost to begin with, and if you've got your Acc figured out, you can sometimes drop that down to just one slot of investment. Musculature Alpha is a key point in getting the most value out of damage enhancement and lets you push beyond. You have to be mindful of the value an individual Damage Enhancement gives over whether a Proc would not provide more value. There's very few cases in the game where a proc is going to be more value than at least one damage enhancement, so you should likely always have at least one IO's worth of damage to start with. Remember that you can Enhancement Boost IO's and that help extend singular slot choices to the next step. Part of the ease of using Tankers for Proc Monster builds is that Tankers get that higher base starting value which allows them a ton of leverage in getting their values up with minimum investment. This is a direction I'd suggest for you that keeps Leviathan Mastery:

Hol’up. Pause on this right here. Because. On Retail I played a lot of Scrappers, pretty much every set except Staff, Ice Melee, and now Psi. On Homecoming I’ve grown to see the intrigued of doing more dynamic things with other ATs like Defenders and Corruptors, and finding unique and fun ways to make them do crazy things. I also substantially hated Blasters, yet my Ice/Atomic has become one of my favorites. My Melee are only two Scrappers and a Tanker. I’ve got three Masterminds (desperate attempts, I generally dislike playing them). Of my ~20 characters, aside from the previous mentions, they are “support” roles (Defender, Corruptor, Controller), and every single one of them is built to be solo-sufficient. It isn’t about being “outclassed by another AT” but how that character plays and interacts with the dynamics of the game world. Turning on toggles and mashing that four-combo attack chain only goes so far on the “keeps my interest” meter. So... let’s not drag AT inferiority complexes into this. 😛 Unpause.

It’s not Cold Damage, so... doesn’t count.

Oh I loaded up the puns in that comment 😄 The reason I personally didn’t include the Seer is because I was going for a full shadow puppet concept and the Seer really breaks that vibe. I really went back and forth for no-joke 30 minutes on sticking Shadowy Binds and Living Shadows just on name/theme reasons but Dark Grasp and Possess are just too good and... Possess still kind of makes sense on theme creating “shadow puppets”.

Pseudopet.

To be fair, Super Reflexes only has three survivability builds: Dead, 45% Defense, and 59% Defense. Any other shared set however would be a lot more apparent given the base values that Tankers start at compared to Brutes, and the extra effort involved to get them to the same goal line.

🤣 I like my TA/A Proc Monster TYVM

I'm afraid not. Dark Control/Dark Miasma/Soul Controller will has a terrifying amount of Fear inclusive abilities at its disposal. Fearsome Stare Intimidate Invoke Panic (if you feel inclined) Scare x2 (Each Haunt carries the Scare ability, ST) Terrifying Roar (Umbra Beast, 10/s Cooldown Cone) Fear Incarnate (If we're counting the Vigilante PBAoE) I'm not one for repeating sets, but I sat down thinking about this and came up with a build that kind of scares me a little. I could be swayed to build it as I ended up stirring it around a concept. Disappears for 15 minutes. Okay, never mind, I rolled the character. Anyway, what's got me intrigued is the idea of getting enough recharge into the build to play around with some semi-bent ideas to thematic concept. One thing that has me a bit hyped is the idea of using Adrenal Booster for not only its +Rech to get into a Perma-Hasten cycle on the cheap, but also because it has a mini-PB effect for 60/s that does impact Terrorize! From a leveling perspective the build should probably swap in Living Shadows over something else (Provoke probably) until 38 when Dark Servant shows up to have the Immob and extra AoE proc damage; once the Servant shows up though it carries its own Tenebrous Tentacles filling the Immob Cone function. I've been messing with this for over an hour and a half, I really should slink back into the shadows before it consumes me. And of course, as is my fashion, it's a Proc Monster 😄

I’d like to take this moment to point out the irony of Weaken Resolve, when slotted with Cloud Senses, Shield Breaker, and Lady Grey Damage procs, has a higher DPA than many of the “weaker” Defender blast sets (ahem, Sonic). It also becomes exponentially self-increasing by causing -Res on its own, and then again with Achilles proc in it. Not saying we should all sign up for this set up, but on a Solo perspective it is interesting as a supplemental tool that doesn’t require anything but a little global recharge and some Accuracy to be a -30 Res 89 DPA (base) hitting attack.

I sifted through a half dozen pages of suggestions thinking surely someone else has thought this too. I mean, it can't just have occurred to me tonight and be the only one!? But for some of you it'll be a brick-wall moment I'm sure, just as it was for me. Where are the Cold damage typed procs?! We have touches of negative, bursts of fire, mental melting pots full of psionic, enough sharp teeth and blades to make a lethal army, and plenty of smashing fists, heck even a toxin or two for good measure. But no cold theme sets, not even in the slow department. This bums me out! Thus, I propose, nay, DEMAND! In the advent of further IO set creations to diversify this wonderful game, we need to splash some cold-themed sets out there other than those pesky Winter Origins that don't even have a cold damage proc, what were you thinking!? The hoarfrost! I'll be truthfully honest, I'd love to see a unique twist on IO sets by getting a few cold-theme ones out there with not just a proc, but a unique as well! Get that damage proc in there, and give a unique, better than comparable but not overpowered -Slow/-Dam/-Rech effects. Get a good TAoE set that does cold proc damage and has a unique proc for -Damage, set it at a nice 2PPM. Get me a Ranged set with one too, get two solid -Dam triggers in there to help those Ranged folks out. Lets get a Slow/-Rech into a nice Melee punch. Frankenslotting has proven that a good assortment of enhancement can occur in just 3-4 IO's, so making these atypical sets will give ground to more flexible choices for sure. Make them rare, two doubles, two triples or a double, two triples, and a quad. What about that six-piece bonus? Lets do something abnormal and make it a 6% Damage Increase! Seriously, we'd only get one shot at it, lets do something different. We're tripping over that global recharge these days, I'd love a chance to get something new in a build.

To bump this back up after confirming the issue myself. Amp Up is not impacting pets at the very fundamental level of the proc effect with Knock+Discharge. Fired Amp Up off on each of the pet class tiers for a Demon MM, no result on their abilities or proc bonus. Had another player present and hit them with Amp Up and they successfully triggered the proc repeatedly. These effects were working in the staging release before it moved to the live servers, and now are not. I don't recall seeing a patch note specifically to this effect.

The Green Machine ideology predates the type of IO builds we can build now with its rather fundamental structure of slotting. I took the most recent build and made some tweaks to it to get a few things into the build that will help it produce results better. A bit of KB>KD conversion on two of the ideal choices (Torrent and Explosive Blast), and also stuck a Force Feedback +Rech into Torrent. Spam Torrent with that proc on a spawn of 10 and you'll fire off that proc quite often, which in turn super-charges your recharge across the board. Torrent+FF will be the key in giving you perma-Hasten without further investment. You may notice I shaved down a slot here and there, but those abilities remain at the same level of enhancement by just boosting what remains. Sometimes what you might do in three slots gets ED capped and wastes a slot (not always, but the margins are often thin). One particular area to point out was Adrenalin Boost, that power gives an 800% Recovery buff... there's no reason to end-mod that further especially with Recovery Aura floating around, I boosted the remaining slots to ramp up the Regen portion a bit more. As Linea pointed out, you really don't need the Kismet, so stripped that and dropped in the Reactive +Res unique. I also provided a choice option between Aim and Tactics. Two slotting Aim only nets you 3/s, Torrent+FF will negate that by a wider margin. I also pulled out the Gaussian's and moved those slots to Tactics because if you're teaming with this build, Tactics impacts the entire team/league and the Gaussian Unique triggers based off how many people are being impacted within its coverage; it wont be as controlled a response, but you'll have 6 trigger attempts every minute compared to two inside Aim.

Dark Armor will net you a Stun And Fear PBAoE toggle, but Cloak of Fear isn’t very strong for its endurance cost and poor accuracy base. Dark Armor can be built to ridiculous levels of survivability with the right build investment. If you really want to hammer home the Controller aspect though, then I would suggest Ice Armor. That set will give you a lot of strong defense by 32, and fixes a lot of endurance issues in-set. From a play standpoint both sets have a damage aura, but unlike Oppressive Gloom which can cause wander with stun, Ice has Chilling Embrace which is a slow and -Dam. Best thing about CE is that will spread out and longer to draw aggro your way, debuff the incoming damage for everyone equally. The icing on top of it all is Hibernation. If you toss taunt out right before you ice-up you’ll hold that aggro the entire time. As a unified build Ice/Stone/Stone is by far the most Controller-feeling Tank (in my opinion).

What exactly are you not seeing as functioning? The last test I did at release of the set had the endurance boosting and the proc trigger effect of Amp Up working on Galvanic Sentinel.

In my opinion, no not on a Mastermind. An argument could be made for Corr/Def but slots are a bit of a premium min/maxing Electric Affinity so it might only just be a fun proc to include while leveling as a nice random kicker.

Assuming you're talking about in Empowering Circuit, yes? If you're just firing it off between you and your immediate pet-horde, you might not see it as often as the moment you bump that list up to 2-3 more people around you. In my experimenting with it I fired the chain off 5-6 times with nothing, but then went another 5 shots with the proc going off each time. It isn't a consistent/guaranteed thing, and it only impacts your character, not any of the pets. In order to start stacking into the doubles I had to be surrounded by a far larger amount of people, start off an actual player character, and have at least 6-7 stacks of Static to get the extra jumps; even then it wasn't very often.

Your key points in defense are usually (without going into the hard mechanics of defense): 20% - T2 Purple Inspiration will softcap you. In my opinion this is a "cheaty" level for builds that can build up a lot (or max) resistances to several (most/all) key factors and are okay with carrying a tray with T2 Purples. I also like hitting this on high recharge builds with my support characters and using Unleash Potential and having a global base of 20% to all because Unleash impacts all metrics, and clicking that one power instantly pushes me into defensive territory against everything without worrying about what's in my inspiration tray. 32.5% - T1 Purple Inspiration will softcap you. Good spot because any level of purple inspiration will get you to 45%, and it's also a generally good place that if you get hit with a support defense buff it'll be more likely to get you to, or over, 45% as well. Generally this is considered the ideal atypical "minimum" you'd want to build defense levels at, if you do at all, but see my above note 😉 45% - The actual softcap. 59%. - The "iCap", or Incarnate Softcap, as enemies at this level have adjusted To-Hit metrics that need to be accounted for. Generally speaking, when a build doesn't have any inherent defense to work from, getting to 45% is tough (possible, but not always easy) and often is only in one paired key type (like S/L). One aspect of the full on "proc monster" design is accepting the sacrifice of set bonuses needed to try and build that way in order to replace defense with an extreme amount of offense. For Tankers being able to get to 90% Resistances, that's an extreme amount of reduction. Yes they'll still get hit, and yes debuffs and the like can muck about with things, but they're generally still going to be very difficult to deal with compared to many other AT's that can only hit 75%. Layering defense on top of that means that not only is the damage they take heavily reduced, they're now just flat out getting hit less, but if that defensive value isn't reasonably significant, it generally isn't worth anything. That Rad/Spines that has a smidgen of defense is purely anecdotal to the presence of stuff like Combat Jumping as a mule for Shield Wall and Reactive for their Unique +Res IO's (8% total value, definitely worth burning a power choice for). The ability isn't intended to actually be used (I mean, you could, for mobility, but still). If you can't hit at least 20% defense to everything in a collective sweep, then it's generally not worth the effort involved. You'd have to take at least... Steadfast and Gladiator 3%, CJ/Hover, Manuevers, and Weave (both ED capped) ... and I think (as a Tanker) that might just barely get you there. I fiddled around with the original Rad/Spines and spliced in the changes: As far as an attack chain is concerned... it's just mashing those AoE's as they come up. The build is just a lawn mower. Hit Throw Spines as you approach a spawn, Spine Burst (and/or any other AoE) once you're in the mess of it all. Barb Swipe, Ripper, and Gloom (added specifically because of a lack of ST strength) can be rotated around to get ST hits in, splash Throw Spines to fill as well as its the next best thing as a singular-damaging option. Fill everything with Procs. But in seriousness, you can't really "skip" your way through the idea on an elevator pitch worth of notes. There's a certain level of base knowledge that needs to be gleaned to understand what's beneficial and what's not, and be cognizant of the formula functions to know where your optimal choices will be. Don't need a deep level of math, just a basic "this is good, that is bad" level of understanding. Definitely read the main/first post, and then find any follow up relevant to a build you might be interested in further, and that applies not just to this thread but also the Controller and Defender ones. Collectively the three threads will overlap into Dominators, Blasters, Scrappers, Stalkers, Sentinels, Masterminds, and Corruptors for shared sets. Proc-focused building is the duality of taking high-spec building to the next level, and also taking cheap builds and making them more offensive powerhouses.

For the (late) record: Victory Rush, Conserve Power, and Unleash Potential are what make my Storm/Nrg Defender endurance neutral and allow me to play any content from level 23 and up with a fair amount of safety from a blue-bar perspective. Don't need that pesky Ageless mucking about in my build, it's already recharge capped! mwuahaha!

There are a fair enough number of advocates who will push the impact of just capped resistances alone. You are talking about being in a team the majority of your play, so it's unlikely that you won't find some level of additional support coming from your allies (unless you strictly avoid playing with other support roles). I can only tell you that each of the individual builds I took out and did fundamental testing with them in "normal" conditions. In the case of the Rad/Spines, I took that into a Farm so I could test consecutive, close-nit groupings for the AoE effects, but it also allowed for demonstrating its survivability. It does just fine on its own without any defense built in. If you're actively using Radiation Therapy as a proc'd out AoE every 20-30/s, the healing benefits end up just being a causality to your attack cycle; you also have Particle Shielding which is going to add into that mixture. Don't be afraid to spam those abilities to maximum potential. Since procs aren't influenced by the AT you're playing, having a heavy proc-based build doesn't really matter Tanker versus Brute, but what I can say is that you'll find it easier to get your resistance values higher on a Tanker with a better modifier, and you'll also serve as a much better Tank with how Gauntlet was improved.

No attack chain with Concentrated Strike in it is good. That ability is a DPS Black Hole.

If you haven't started using it yet, Victory Rush should act as a nice buffing medium to your endurance so long as you use it on a Boss or better. Another thing to consider is grabbing Supper Radial Hybrid, it has a static Endurance Reduction to your entire build, and when it's toggled on it'll give you a nice little mini Power Build Up that benefits quite a few of your abilities, and gets some of that +Dam back. Going that path could give you the chance to skip Ageless and grab Clarion for the mez hole. All discussion about Defender Blasts immediately applies to Blaster Primaries. No there's not a pile of discussion about the Blaster Secondaries, but much of it is Melee based which is pretty easy to grasp from the Tanker thread. The only major exploration I did into Blasters (Blast Sets/Sentinels) was "Mad King Special" (link in sig) to goes the extreme-path of procs/proc utility with a blast(er) set.

Any toggle-heavy build will (of course) consume a reasonable amount through its toggles, but often Primary/Secondary based toggles aren't individually that heavy, but stacking several makes a big impact. For Dark Armor the three core you need to worry about the most are Embrace, Murky, and Obsidian, the rest are easily "down the road" for your added survival. The biggest culprit in DA's toolkit is Death Shroud, it's burning over half an end per second and that's rough early on. It may sound blasphemous, but I'd suggest avoiding Death Shroud when you don't have solid endurance buffs from team members, and/or start getting better IO's for your own endurance management (like Miracle +End or Numina's +Regen/End). The secret to beating the endurance cost of a toggle-heavy build, strangely enough, is in your attacks themselves. Unslotted attacks are munching 8-16+ endurance a swing, and if you lack accuracy, then you're burning double the energy for a lot of wind. There's two ways you can work around that with Dark Armor, one method even involved adding another toggle to help fix the problem! If you're fighting +1 to +2 enemies, get at least one Accuracy enhancement into all of your attacks, two into your big hitters because those'll be munching down double the endurance of anything else. Back that up with an endurance enhancement, putting you at 2-3 slots per attack minimum. Obviously we want some damage in there, because more damage means less attacks to kill a single target, so your optimal minimum slotting before 32 should be (at least) 1 Acc, 1 End, 2 Dam or 2 Acc, 1 End, 1 Dam (more suggested). A neat trick you can perform as you level--that doesn't rely on specific sets--is to find what are called "doubles (two enhancement types) and triples (three types)" from the lower level IO sets (generally the uncommon recipes that are not sought after for sets that cap at 30-35) and "frankenslot" with these. Together they will often provide just slightly better enhancement than dedicating one of each of a type, so Acc/Dam or Dam/End or Acc/Dam/End, as examples. As a sub example of that rough math, if a level 40 Dam IO provides ~38%, but a split Dam/Any provides ~24% Dam, doing two Dam/Any will net 48% combined enhancement, alongside the benefit of the secondary enhancement. By grabbing these random recipes for cheap prices (talking possibly in the 1,500-10,000 for some, maybe 100,000-300,000 INF for others) you can enhance a power for a cost that's not too different from buying SO's at any stage of the game. The same can be done to enhance your shields, but even the lower tier ones get bought up for a million INF because they're crafting fuel, which makes it harder to use those for this purpose. At a bare-bones choice, 2 Acc, 1 End in every attack, 2 and 2 in the bigger-consuming ones until you can build better balance. The other thing you can do is to bump up a little bit of that endurance and damage management, and shift some of your accuracy off to Tactics from the Leadership pool and drop 1-2 End Redux into it as you level. Grab Assault or Maneuvers (not to run, just to get access to this next power...) along the way in order to pick up Victory Rush. This is really just a leveling tactic (pun), you'll likely respec out of some (or all) of the Leadership choices by 50 and have a more focused build, but Victory Rush with just one End Mod in it will help give you padded endurance boosts when used on a Boss (or better) defeated enemy. By going this path you can solidify the choice of just 1 Acc early on, and gets extra End/Dam into your attacks, and it'll give you more stability that your attacks will perform more consistently. Bonus is if you do this and frankenslot as well, getting some Recharge into those double/triples will be more feasible with less negative impact. Obviously this path impacts your power choices and for some folks this results in skipping powers they may not want to, so it's a totally optional thing. Another "as you level" power choice would be taking Combat Jumping over Cloak of Darkness to get you Immobilize protection and until proper IO slotting/building can make better value out of CoD's buffs, big plus on CJ being a near-free end usage ability to fill that one mez gap in Dark Armor. One additional side tip: don't over use Dark Regen, or use it for small slivers of health needlessly. That ability is going to hit for 20+ (22 I think?) Endurance per activation without enhancement, if you're using it to heal 10-20% of your health, you're burning its potential. Dark Regen is the kind of heal that can take you from 1 HP to full in a matter of seconds because it can sap just one enemy for 20-100% of your HP depending on enhancement.