Sir Myshkin

Even with the Taunt aspect, I still ran into issues of mobs running away from me and not staying engaged. While it was useful to initially collect, it didn't inherently change the fact that things didn't stay glued to me, so even sets that don't have a taunt (all the other ones), this was still somewhat fair play. In the realm of sets with Damage Auras, that would act just as effectively a threat-modifier for short distance collection. But I did try and maximize what was available to the ability, and adding a little -ToHit gave that much more wiggle room on the elemental aspect of defense. Although what was placed for attacks was still only Smashing anyway wasn't it? So really only reliant on one resistance shield. Maybe there out to be a little variety in the attacks (range, melee, aoe, s/l, elemental) to diversify the need to keep all toggles on beyond "good faith." And to be fair, any character can select the Body Ancillary, so do you consider that a fair-use policy to balance consumption if needed? It still has to play within the realm of the SO system and should be considered in the same way that Hasten must be (somehow). I used it immediately. Claws is a generally fast attack set and my chain was "fine" out of the box with just FU > Strike > Slash > Focus, Hasten was only a caveat to fuel Spin and Shockwave speed. I ran in with it tirggered after the first use of Spin which gave me two full minutes of carnage. When it came to Bosses+, there wasn't really anything different for me to exercise in a ST realm other than dragging them into the next spawn and applying more AoE. Getting Spin faster made it so I didn't have to spend an extra 2/s occasionally tabbing-attacking individual kills. That's what added up over time.

Except for the fact that I explicitly tested the same build both pre and post Tank alterations. In the pre-state I used Contaminated with Bruising, and in the Post state Radioactive Smash. Now in the pre-state Incarnates (primarily looking at Alpha and Interface) had been shut off from instant-access so my time there was 10:30 without those. Post-change, achieving 3:20--even with Incarnates added into the mix--is still a significant deviation. While Bruising definitely imparted benefit to the Procs themselves, changes to the base modifier while using things like AAO and Assault (especially now) are going to easily eclipse that loss. I'll get there eventually, don't worry. I think you'll be surprised what it can still do.

Since there's not really a better place to post this, and @Vanden mentioned it here, and there's not a lot of other traffic about this issue, I have a correlating video that shows the discrepency with the outlining. I've also noticed it also impacts fonts by oddly enlarging them in some circumstances beyond just enhancing the eye-shadow. Certain fonts throughout the UI and in-game are popping up abnormally larger than they should, and/or with bolder-than-normal outlining. So far seen it on titles within the User Agreement, on several buttons and fonts throughout the character-creation process, and in-game through random text boxes, acknowledgement buttons (like "ok" buttons from prompts, or AE), and combat damage inflicted on a target. It can be seen on the following video right off the bat with Rikti Monkeys. At 0:20-23 both normal and over-bold numbers pop up. When the Pylon explodes and the "Vanguard Merits" text comes up, it shifts as it scrolls from normal to thicker-lines (3:45-3:50). Same thing happens again at the very end with a second destroyed Pylon, the font shifting mid-scroll on screen. In some cases this is easy to ignore, but there are quite a few areas where this is super distracting and clearly broken.

Given I'm in, slash was already prepping to be in the process of, significant testing on Tanks before these changes rolled out, I've spent some follow up time with a specific Shield Defense/Radiation Melee Tank both pre, and post alterations on the Test Server, and I can say that the alterations have made a pretty significant impact, bruising is not missed, and bruising should definitely not be added back into the mix in the realm of trying to patch up hurt feelings given how significant the shift has become in just being made stronger collectively. Also, characters that were created during the T1/T2 swap are now perma-altered into a T2, no T1 build, doesn't seem to break the game in anyway. Definitely did not attempt to do any kind of respec since testing as built pre-and-post was super important and didn't want to change anything in that regard. Given all that, for those that want, may be curious, or generally would like to dig through some logs on how the changes have impacted things, here is a SD/RM/Soul knocking down a Pylon in 3:20. Previously this took 10:30 without Incarnates or Tank alterations, and it took 13:09 when the Pylons were bugged at 54. This is the stabilized variant of the Pylon, and it absolutely melts to this version of Tanks. Also, random fonts are bugged to be larger than they should, and outlined as if comic-graphics are turned on, it's super weird to see pop up.

Tanker Testing Update #2.1 Remember not that long ago (Monday, it was last Monday) when I said I traveled into the RWZ and bloodily beat a level 54 Pylon to arrest and it took 13:09 and I speculated that a normal-conditioned Pylon would probably happen in 7:00-8:00 minutes? Remember that? I was wrong. I was really, really wrong. I did it in 3:40. /em wait for the record scratch. So yeah, hopped back on with the same build, loaded in near a Pylon and jumped on it; heck I didn't even pre-load Ageless! Started bashing away and realized that the HP bar was shrinking something awful fast, and Ageless still hadn't refreshed, and then it did, and then the Pylon exploded and I went "...huh." Figured I'd try it again with Hybrid on, see what happens. Repeated success, faster time. The test changes for Tanks made a pretty incredible bump in their ST performance, I'd say that's pretty straight forwardly apparent right now. Of course it wouldn't be fair of me to not include a video, for posterity. Now that Pylons are restored, I'm going to revisit this aspect of the testing with Bio/EM and also talk about some of the results that have come back in regards to Ice/Stone (Leviathan and Soul) thanks to legwork from @Rylas.

I was more curious as to whether you'd run numbers on it and came down to "Nah, Propel is still worth it anyway." Or if it had just been a "I like this Pony Trick more." Not really anything beyond that. I just used the quote as a reference for where I was coming from. But you answered it either way 🙂 Only speaking from my experience, Wormhole an extra mob on top of whatever mob your team is currently engaged in, and then Shift the entire thing, team and all. You'll probably find out that they don't even notice half the time. Either way, this tactic works both teamed or not teamed, but if you can demonstrate how you can use it competently, well, honestly most people wont even realize you're doing it. If you have a lot of ranged folks, be open on the topic with them though, to be fair. Redlynne will have their own comment to this, I'm certain, but there is a unique aspect to the nature of WH+DS that has a varying assortment of approaches you can take that make it better than WH+CF. The Shift, as best I could tell with just two spawns of 10-16 each, seems to have a pretty appreciable cap on what fits inside it, meaning I can feed it far more than normal powers would hit. Depending on how you utilize the combo, it can serve as either a greater measure of control (as Redlynne built), or as a source of excess damage (as I tested it). DS can take the Controller AT-O Damage Proc, as well as Trap (otH) and get two trigger events, ontop of the fact you can get a Font trigger in there, as well as FF+Rech proc (in WH, to effect yourself), the KD effect procs, there's a ton of utility happening there. The very basic of it: WH one spawn into another, and Shift the entire thing into what tantamount as an AoE isolation hold. With all the assorted Procs involved, you're almost guaranteed a ton of effects, let alone the potential to do two sets of proc damage on a collective of two spawns at the same time (once at activation, and then 10/s later on a trigger for the Shift). You are also not restricted from dropping additional effects into the Dimensional Shift like proc'd-out Distortion Field, Singularity, or just about anything that has a location-based drop point.

735% Without IH Active, at cap HP, 32% S/L Def, and 40% S/L Resists. Amusing part is 40-45% S/L Defense is possible without much effort, does take away some of the fanatical recharge values though. If IH is brought down to ~170-180/s cooldown, that's functionally 50% up time. Fill that gap with Rebirth (the +Regen one), and it'll give you a wide spike of IH into pseudo-IH for a duration. Fill the remaining 45/s of its low-point with a cycle of Shadow Meld > MoG > SM and you'll be quite untouchable. Oh, of course, a build would be helpful, wouldn't it? 🙂

Might want to fix this to 3281. Went looking for the mission and came up empty until I saw the number in the image and realized this was a typo. May get away with not testing every single one, but there are considerable aspects to each that alter the way an SO build can function in a mission, and how many mobs it can handle at any given time. If I did this same test with Dark Armor I'd have absolutely no concern about herding 16 mobs at once because Oppressive Gloom would eliminate 90% of the damage this test is capable of dishing out, while also shortening my "1 HP" scenarios with Death Shroud. The fact that four secondary sets have damage components in themselves changes the dynamic of this test. Granted you've very specifically chosen just one (to start) here, but it's an important aspect on how things would pair. To boot, Elec, Dark, and Fire all approach combat in different ways. Sap, Mez, and Kill-it-with-fire, respectively. Frankly Elec and Fire would fair better with access to endurance correction tools, but all are still viable in an SO world, especially at base level. 1.) AoE is a given, and dramatically favored in this kind of style test "clear all." That's one of the biggest things about the Pylon Challenge that's been brought up, how ST take-down doesn't fully explore all avenues of what a build can do. In the realm of a "Clear All" style mission, AoE will always be superior. 2.) I question if Self Rez should be removed from the table as an option here. Only a few sets actually have access to them, and in terms of SO's they were explicitly added for the fact that the set needed to self-revive because it was almost a given it would die. Is the Rez a handicap in this situation where other sets are forced to evaluate a scenario more carefully when the Rez user can just barrel in constantly without concern? It changes the play style by a significant degree. Should the Rez be disqualified from testing, and if you die, that run be considered a DNF. Should we not have a category that exemplifies when a set fails? 3.) The OP of this thread was specifically targeting Scrappers, and as such, any other AT can't really be quantified fairly here because each has their own faults and require their own discussion (IMO). 4.) Yes, it will/does, and I'll have an example of such... An Actual Test: Cause why not, I took out a Claws/WP over on Pineapple and executed the given test. This is the build I put together because I did want to test out using Hasten, and see if I felt force-herding with Provoke might dramatically change things versus the fact that WP naturally taunts in RttC anyway. So I did more than just the base-line tests. My times were pretty consistent; within a +/-5 sec variance of 6:05. A couple of scenarios took me further out, and it brought out an interesting irritation about this test that added unnecessary time (runners). 6:20, 6:00, 6:03, 5:55, 6:10, 6:05, 6:01, 6:00, 6:09, 6:08 The first run I over extended without consideration of being SO-only. I know the OP was stated that we could invalidate an initial run or two, but I don't think that I should as it reflects the fragility of SO's appropriately. No mulligans. In that run I ended up kicking the bucket and sat there for a couple of seconds debating if I should count that as a failed run, or use Resurgence. To me, rezzing on the spot felt like I'd cheated the test as it showed an inability of the primary to stop from poor play performance. In the consideration of getting a complete time, however, I did resurrect and complete the run to end up with that exaggerated time. However, in my book, that's a "DNF" (Did Not Finish). The other two slight offsets are the fact that I kept running into issues with mobs running from me, despite RttC. I had to back track to find lost targets (not far, generally, but enough that running back around a corner added effort and time). Having two somewhat ranged attacks was a big saving grace in most cases as I could usually tag the runners before they got far, but I couldn't always stop multiples. My process of execution was to run into a mob, hesitate for one tick, then swing into a second while taking a corner or box to collect at, then use Focus > Spin > (Jump) > Shockwave (In Air). This gave me a good PBAoE on the mob, then in the air I could direct the cone downwards and knock the spawns flat, with minor spread. Hit Focus a second time and now have two stacks, ST attack the toughest (yellow or orange con) in the group until Spin was back up 1-2/s later, and reapply. Then just tab-cycle one attack quickly on the remaining mobs. In the event I encountered an orange con Boss, I'd stick my targeting though them, AoE out the spawn and then drag them into the next group and repeat until the Boss was dead to avoid wasting time cycling attacks with nothing around me. RttC needs a spawn to punch-up Regen, so I wanted to stay surrounded as much as possible. For the initial entry-way into that specific map, I'd RttC Taunt the first spawn, then run down the hall to the center of the ramp/split level room and jump up, get the attention of the mobs above, and drag them all down to the bottom to let off AoE's. I regularly used Shockwave as a collection tool for a secondary spawn. I tested collecting two mobs at a time as well as starting in one and pulling a second into it, dwindling down, slowly moving towards the next and keep adding. That technique really only worked in the final area where there's 4-5 spawns relatively close to each other in a circle, separated by a wall and one corner/offset room. Will also note a small thing about endurance, as the Accolades got brought up. For this build in particular I did toss in Physical Perfection to wastefully fill power selections, and even tossed a slot into it, because it has no appreciable effect on the build. Without the accolades, the build recovers so much EPS that I don't even have to slot end redux into Spin. At 9.15 for a cost, and an EPS of 3.45 on its own (no PP/Accolades), and an animation time of 2.64/s (arcana), I recover 9.108 end in that window. Endurance is a non-issue in this scenario. As for the HP side, they add ~7 HP/s net regen at 1 target in RttC, 12 HP/s at 10 targets in range. That's a little more significant, but not sure that really warrants much mental effort for concern since this isn't 100% about survival. I also tried out using Provoke as a collection tool over Shockwave to try and pool groups together. It really didn't change anything compared to just jumping into the vicinity of the spawn and letting RttC aggro and pull them back a hair into the previous spawn. Also additionally tested Hasten on two runs, got a reduced time of 5:05 to 5:15, which was the difference of being able to keep Follow Up double stacked versus a small gap. Without Hasten FU carried a 6.16 cooldown, w/ 4.53. Spin lost 1.6/s of rech time, and SW 4.1/s.

Quoting myself on this one, as a consideration from some of the review I did before, did you consider dropping Propel altogether in favor of Lift > Crush > GD? Just from overview of how it performed in a Proc-World, Propel felt underwhelming when Procs so dramatically change the game for Controllers, and Gravity has so many ST hitters to play around with.

I've been away from my PC for a couple days, come back to find this thread and I spark a lot of questions in the first post and see a lot of those questions are being landed on through further experimentation, so I guess that saves me the time of asking a lot of the "But what about this factor..." I think you both have fallen on the biggest dilemma of practicing a "standard" rule. Play style is going to change the dynamic of each interpretation, as well as build choices. Trying to define a static metric with Willpower is understandable, but in the SO game, each player always looked for the best way to bend abilities no differently than we do with IO's/Sets now. Hasten alone dramatically changes the speed a set operates at, even at the SO level. Other mechanics like +Rech in Super Reflexes and Electric Armor, how Fire Melee/Fire Armor plays out so much faster than just Fire/WP. You're talking about trying to rebuild a baseline that the original Dev team had/used years worth of data to benchmark from and still gave birth to Titan Weapons. The short end of the stick, I think this prospect is an interesting endeavor to explore, but it isn't something that can be weighed on from just one study of how a singular defensive set operates with a slew of primary attack sets. This really needs weighed equally for every set and pairing combination to find where (or even if) something abnormally sticks out. At ten runs a piece, 19 primary, 13 secondary, 2,470 tests that we must assume will average somewhere between 5-8 minutes a piece. Right now the one singular test you're looking to complete is already 20-25 hours worth of testing alone.

What DSorrow posted is basically it. It takes a bit of extra recharge to get Devastating down to (or below) 5/s recharge, Smash ends up having a nice balance with Siphon that you only have to hit 5.7/s (much simpler). The only downside is that if Devastating Blow misses it can really suck since it is such a huge amount of time to wind-up and strike. If you're not a fan of longer-animations, technically you can get Strike/Smash/Sweep/Siphon to work out into an okay-ish chain. It'll do enough to matter, but wont have quite the same punch as DB will add. I had tested Strike > Sweep > Siphon and it'll do about 25-30% less than DB > Smash > Siphon > Smash.

Someone already put together a tool that sort of does this to a degree, it can be found here. I haven't personally tested it out, but it farms the combat log and displays everything down to what attacks do the most damage, DPS, total damage, etc...

Take a look at this thread.

Even the most Deus Ex Machina hero of them all (Superman) was given a (real) weakness in Magic. There's always going to be some kind of hole.

Unfortunately the numbers don't agree with you. Mind this isn't me trying to be sarcastic about it, I'm just pointing out just how kind of bonkers Bio Armor really is: On just SO's alone, and nothing else, Bio Armor has 2% more defense on the same stats, the same 35% resistances to S/L. Willpower gets a slight bump on exotic resistances, but it is only 8% versus 4%, and Willpower gets 32% Psionic where Bio gets 35% Toxic. On an HP/s Regen value, WP has 72/s, Bio 49/s, With DNA Siphon, 89/s with Parasitic Aura, and 110/s with both active. Bio Armor also gets massive Absorb values, so they have large windows where they're not "taking damage" at all. Bio Armor also isn't forced to stay in combat contsantly, unlike WP whose regen is dependent on being surrounded by enemies. If I take RttC out of the equation (as in the requirement of being in-combat), WP drops to 22 HP/s, and Bio keeps trucking. If I also exclude DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura as an out-of-combat comparison, Bio is still ahead with 28/s. Oh, and that's not even including the Adaptation Forms for Bio Armor. Or the fact that Bio has -Dam components to improve survivability. Or the fact it has a Damage Aura. Or the fact that once you include IO's into the equation, Bio no longer needs its prior two adaptations and can rely solely on Offensive alone, meaning it will cause whatever primary it gets paired with to outperform any other potential build. And these are just the Scrapper values. Edit to add: Somewhat amusing part of all of it is the fact that Parasitic Aura is basically a click Instant Healing with slightly lowered values, requires a to-hit check against enemies, and can't quite by made perma. Get someone to hit a Bio Armor with Frostwork and that's pretty much GG.

Just seeing this thread solidifies it for me, I think, to rebuild my Regen and put together a video of stupid-regen-antics. Back on OG-Live */Regen was the only character I fully invested in back then (as in, multi-billion INF build by the old market standards). The thing I always find ironic is how many people talk about "Willpower is what Regen wishes it could be," when it's only one power in the set that even mimics Regen. Bio Armor has the same fundamental concept baked in to it as well, yet no one ever brings that to the topic-table. Bio Armor is what Willpower wishes it could be 😉 I had back-burnered a Street Justice concept, but I think I'm going to do Titan Weapons just to really put some salt on it.

Tanker Testing: Update #2 Shield Defense/Radiation Melee: There were a couple of sets that I started doing preliminary testing on at the beginning of September before Justin became a Pineapple, and Rikti Pylons became viscous player hating towers actually they've kinda always been that. We expect, and somewhat know that most cases of what gets tested here for Tanks is mechanics we have certainty that work at this point. Melee attacks are an aspect of one of the most prolific parts of the game, and a lot of people plug in procs here and there and get a lot of random experience with them, but typically no one is shoving all the procs in at once, like we are here. This becomes more a test of "what happens when I overfill the cookie jar." Incidentally, there is something odd going on with Irradiated Ground that is demonstrating inconsistencies with how it handles reporting back on procs like the -Res ones. When monitoring Pylon times I came across several concerns to the point where I recorded just that single powers interactions on a single target and caught irregularities in the duration of its debuffs (cutting short). While concerning as there's no pattern or warranted excuse for the error, the procs still do go off at a considerable rate. I will be reviewing video from Pineapple with Irradiated Grounds running and contrast to see if the problem persists as I assume it will. For survival, of course many of these Tank primaries are going to do well, they're Tanks, they're built for it! Well, to a degree, I'm bending builds to do everything within just one half of my slot options. Still, Shield is definitely an easy set to reach target goals with, and was incredibly self sustaining. My initial testing for SD/Rad was without any Incarnates what-so-ever due to the restrictions when test was still 'Justin.' I ended up recording some of that prelim survival before an attempted Pylon run, and have parsed it into a little >5:00 video 🙂 I compressed the Pylon time down though as it is 10:30's of my bashing on a bag of HP until it dies. This footage gave for a nice contrast against pre and post Tank changes, too, as I now have a post-pineapple SD/Rad put together. I did a few alterations to power choices since I wasn't stuck taking Contaminated Strike, and tossed in Gloom for a ranged, strong ST attack. I know I said earlier that the situations with Pylons were hindering things, but I decided to do a one-off contrast and beat down a level 54 Pylon with this build. It came back with a 13:09 time. Yeah, that's longer, what the heck, right? Well, slow down that thought train a bit. The Pylons were set as "Objects" scaled to a level, when we went and punched them before the game just treated them as a level 50 even-con. The "bug" (if we're calling it that) currently altering the chemistry of Pylons into 54 meanies is causing a scaling issue. Damage got reduced to about 5/8ths of the original impact, and all debuffs were also reduced (-13% for the -Res compared to -20 before). The fact that I still managed that time is worth merit in the bump in damage. I'm estimating that a corrected time for the Pylons, on this particular build, should be more around 8:00 give or take 0:30. I will also note that this, of course, included incarnates in the mix; a T4 Musculature, Degen, and Hybrid Assault Cores. For a bit of contrast, I took some numbers out of the game: Radiation Siphon and Devastating Blow w/ Musculature T4 Core against a 52 Rikti: Without T4 Musculature against 52 Rikti: Some contrast to that from Pre-Pineapple: Radiation Siphon was hitting for 40.23/120.7 + ~65 on basic procs Devastating Blow was hitting for 56.28/168.86 We're definitely not talking about a huge difference, but one that matters on an over-time scale. Proc based builds definitely benefitted more with Bruising than without, however: Even if a slight shift in power gives the Tank more "consistent" overall damage, we were really bent on maxing the given opportunities, and having -Res boost the scale of Procs was nice to have when it came to ST foes. However, as a holistic picture, it probably doesn't matter to loose it because we weren't getting that initial -20% set up on every single target we punched, so things like AoE's weren't every really going to benefit from it. Given that, the loss of Bruising isn't likely to be much, grand-picture. Stealth Edit Add: Proc Choices Some notes I forgot I wanted to add, on terms of the powers within the set. Since Radiation Melee does have a -Def component, we get access to another puddle of Procs, and the Achilles Heel -Res. Irradiated Ground can technically take this proc, and it does pop a lot within that power, but I've come to the determination that carrying it within a ST power like Radioactive Smash is kind of necessary to keep at least that one -Res proc more consistent, giving Tanks the chance to maintain that unique aspect of debuff still. Devastating Blow is likely going to need a smidgen of Recharge to bring it within line for an effective attack chain. I dropped the Acc/Dam/Rech Hecatomb in as it doesn't need to be much, just a hair to get it in line with a full chain of RS>Gloom>RS>DB without much of a gap (a hair at the tail end off Ageless that gets filled with Fusion and Hasten a lot). Nearly all of the attacks can be crammed with four procs, and perform well with that many shoved in and appropriate balance given to the last two slots to pack in a little Acc/Dam/End into them. Because Irradiated Ground re-drops itself every 5/s, packing it with some extra damage procs ends up being well-worth the investment because it gets that trigger chance each drop. Beyond that it doesn't seem like that Pseudo-pet ever has accuracy issues, so just using a single End Redux with five procs seems to be working out just fine. I haven't come across too much of an issue otherwise. I'll probably do a separate to-hit check validation to make sure, but... damage still showed a ton so! Energy Melee & Bio Armor Lets talk about Energy Melee, that wonderfully infamous set that so many folks try and play, and so many more hate to play. I got an opportunity to really sit down and just muck-about with EM on Justin (what else did I have to do). Procs transform this set in a beautiful way. Not saying they don't do beneficial things for other sets, but they really drag this set forward on the scale of "is this viable right now?" I posted some early info on another thread in the Brute sub section talking about a bit of the secret that is Proc-EM. Bone Smasher: Whirling Hands: Energy Transfer: This is being done without Musculature padding the remainder of the damage enhancement that puts the attacks from 60-70% up to 110-120% for their personal damage too. I couldn't even begin to explain it, but I don't think there was a circumstance I didn't just see proc numbers constantly floating above heads with Whirling Hands. And Energy Transfer hitting for 894 (!), with the extra value added in that should crack 1,000 points. On a Tank. That's firing off 300 points of damage in procs alone which is half of what the power hit for to begin with! Add in the combination of Bio Armor to push up some additional +Dam values, and this thing was actually really fun to kite around the RWZ with punching things into oblivion. Energy Punch, Bone Smasher, Whirling Hands, Energy Transfer, and Total Focus were all hitting like trucks, and it was just a glorious day for Energy Melee. I wont say that the set may, or may not still need reviewed, but Procs definitely change the landscape of this power set in a pretty big way. If we get our normal Pylons back in the RWZ on Pineapple, I'll likely revisit SD/RM and take Bio/EM for a run against them. One to get the former another metric to scale against, and the latter to see what Proc-EM can do! If someone was adventurous enough to build one on the living server, I'd encourage the effort. Shield Defense/Radiation Melee/Soul Mastery Build: Footnote to add, Mid's doesn't reflect Pineapple conditions, obviously, so Contaminated Strike (in the build) was actually Radioactive Smash, but slotted as CS is. Bio Armor/Energy Melee/Pyre Mastery Build: Footnote to add, this is as was tested (and currently functions on the living server). In the advent of the Pineapple server conditions for Tank Testing, Barrage would get swapped with Energy Punch, and then that opened power slot would get replaced with Total Focus. In my initial test I wanted to try a build using Char, and even though it is a bit longer recharge and lower base damage, it hit(s) like a truck on its own and probably (even with the test changes) has more consistent value than Total Focus because it animates in a third the time. Last But Not Least A little video of running around as an SD/RM/Soul Tank on Pineapple:

You would be incredibly incorrect in this statement. Disruption Arrow does -20% Resistance, as does Acid Arrow. Acid Arrow can also take the Achilles Heel and Annihilation -Res procs meaning you can have a full debuff of -72.5% Resistance which is incredibly potent. There's also the -Def component of Acid Arrow as well, plus if you're inclined to take it the -31.25% -Dam in Poison Gas Arrow and -Rech/Slow in Glue Arrow. The one thing Trick Arrow doesn't do is buff, but does debuffs incredibly well. Whether you do Defender or Corruptor is really up to as the offset of the debuff values in Acid/Disruption Arrows will be compensated in the damage the Corruptor build can do. If you solo, however, the Defender will get an inherent +30% Damage that offsets their performance. Even if you team, I'd still probably suggest doing the Defender version just because the better debuff value will support your entire team doing more damage, and you can fire those debuffs off very quickly. I've been on high-impact level 50 teams with TA/A and have had absolutely no issue being at the front of the bus when it comes to entering combat and dropping debuffs/damage down. You'll also want to look at getting Procs into your attacks as it will greatly improve your performance. This is my build:

I'd suggest you go take a look at this topic. Since Corruptors are reverse-Defenders, you'll be able to apply all of that information. The TL;DR of it is, yes, Procs are worth it for Corrs/Defenders as it significantly upscales their damage potential.

You do you, my friend, and you won't be disappointed. I can't say I've ever seen an ice cube perform Martial Arts, but hey! One more Ice Tanker in the game is a betterment for all Ice-Tank-Kind! Personally partial to Ice/Stone/Stone as you can become a pocket-controller with a lot of crowd mez/kd effects stacked on top of Chilling Embrace, but Martial will get you into another KD PBAoE and a couple of ST effects too.

To be more precise about the reasoning on defense, enemies in the game have a range of To-Hit percentages based on their level comparable to your own, and then we have Accuracy on top of that. Simple "Can I hit, and is the hit successful." For all basic enemies in the game, up to +4 standard in the 1 to 50 game, is that the max probability to hit a player stops at 45% effective defense, as that is where the max +To-Hit enemies get against you. There are other powers enemy groups obtain that can give them boosts, but they're generally rare for the standard game, so that's why we have what's called the "Soft Cap" (45%). Anything beyond this number is essentially "wasted" defense. However there are key factors that drive wanting/needing more. For enemy groups that cause Defense Debuffs, they can lower your produced defense values, and dramatically altering the opportunity to hit you with each debuff. Even just .5% below 45% has a significant enough different, and it grows dramatically every 1% further from 45% you go. Some sets have resistance to these debuffs, and in those cases can prevent a portion, to majority of that debuff from debilitating them; usually somewhere between 50-95% where possible. Even in the extreme case of Super Reflexes, which easily hits 45%, they want to carry over 2-3% extra so that even if they do get a debuff, it'll get reduced to 1-2%, and still keep at (or above) 45%. For sets/builds that have no debuff resistance, there's not much value in going above 45% because one debuff that breaks through will quickly shred what defense is there (anywhere from -5% or more on a single debuff). The other aspect for wanting more is in Incarnate Content. The Incarnate Trials and TF's (and any of the upper-content Praetorian arcs that may include some Resistance factions with Targeting Drones), all enemies have boosted To-Hit values, which moves the goal-posts for defense to 59%, the value needed to reduce enemy chance to hit you back to 5% again (the minimum amount possible). Hitting this value on defense-based toons is worth consideration if it can be achieved without compromise as it helps keep your build viable without outside assistance. It may not be a consideration if it forces abnormal build choices that weaken your build, though, as you're likely still to team with players that will have support options to boost your defense anyway. It's a personal call at that point. You can also just carry a stack of purple inspirations to boost yourself periodically as well. Inspirations are also a great tool to keep a couple on hand to help fast-patch debuffs.

I don't know that I'd say it can take down a GM necessarily, but it can definitely solo on its own and take down an AV. I played one back on Live for a bit and found it pretty fun, one of the few characters I didn't mind soloing because it gave a lot of freedom to do more things with the */Traps side of things. Not impossible to team with though, just get used to focusing on really just dropping Triage Beacon and Mortar at appropriate times. Doesn't really have the speed flow to keep up with a high-spec +4 mowing team, but then again all you really need in those cases is everyone just laying down cones/aoe's, which you can do plenty of with Beam anyway.

Minor update: Yes the Tanker changes on the test server hit, but shortly after a change was made in trying to instance the Rikti Mothership Raid that has Pylon's now spiked to level 54, which dramatically changes that aspect of my testing for simple ST performance scales. I had also still been under the weather for a bit so I couldn't jump into the test server immediately after the patch, and thus missed my small original window of opportunity. I do have a pile of stuff that's been completed, but I wanted to keep things concise and together without separating data sets. If the Pylons don't get corrected shortly, I'll withhold that aspect for the time being and post what I do have for a few builds. For those who requested to help test builds, I'll be shooting those out. If there were any others that wanted to take some stuff for a test drive, shoot me a message. I know the current dev team would appreciate any mileage they can get out of Tanks right now.

S/L holds the primary source of incoming damage in the game, with Energy being the third. To put that in more significant perspective: ~28% is Smashing, ~42% Lethal, and ~12% Energy. By reaching significant goals in S/L Defense or Resistance or Both, that easily knocks out 70% of the potential damage you'd encounter in the game. When people build to target those values, they're targeting a huge portion of the potential threat they'll face. The funny part is that in a positional stance, the Pylon does AoE, which is the smallest margin (10%) when it comes to positional. Welcome to Claws in general, without substantial impact from -Res, or significant +Dam, Claws doesn't scream "Look at my ST DPS!" in any way. There's definitely got to be focused leverage to start breaking that 250 DPS mark (or, in more substantial terms, the ability to take down an AV in less than 8-10 minutes). But you are right, there is a lot of focus on making things capable of surviving +4 Content. When I did all the proc testing for Controllers/Defenders/Tanks(in process), all survival was judged on a +4 scale, and tested against +4 Enemies, and I only used the Pylon as a measuring stick for DPS, nothing more, and no build was focused-designed for that one task. The Pylon just happens to serve as a nice tool to test what a build can do in terms of taking down a lone, single, heavy HP target. That's all the test was originally ever meant to serve as a utility. That's also why it became relevant and necessary to talk about what Incarnates were being used because of how much they changed that function/utility. You're speaking to a particularly poignant aspect of this scenario: Your Brute clearly can hold its own, but Claws is more an AoE concentric set that can do some ST damage, but [you're] not useless by any stretch, and can definitely take a hit to serve as the point break for a team. You have nothing to inherently prove in that realm, so your build's ability to take down a Pylon (within a considerably reasonable time) doesn't mean it sucks, it just isn't geared for single-target tasking. Considering what it is, IMO, based on their design and utility (ie: Fury), Brutes really serve as a crowd-centered role and benefit vastly more from AoE based concepts. We also see a lot fewer Brute attempts at a Pylon compared to Stalkers or Scrappers or Blasters or (you get the idea). This is a key point on why I feel, and mentioned a bit back, how we need that alternative metric like the AV AE Map to really have a more demonstrable metric in a "realistic" scenario that has better control over flexing the "+4 World." Back when the Devs opened up multi-build capabilities, between PvP Players, and those who wanted "Exemp Builds" and "50 Builds" this play style is exactly why they gave that to the community. There are so many people who go down that path and it makes the game a better experience for all involved because it opens up so many customization options. It's great 🙂 Me personally... I'm too lazy to make multiple builds for my personal characters 🤣 but at least we can attune all our IO's to keep bonuses functional for wider ranges.

While not stated, do want to know for sure if we are to assume that normal in-zone MSR's can be completed without traveling through the LFG Que? The natural collection and running of a league in that environment is more free to hop in and out of and deal with occasional drop outs. I've joined... man I don't even know, well into the 50's worth of MSR's since Homecoming booted up and rarely found very many toons lower than 20 outside of very specific instances where the Raid leader was bringing someone along for an intentional speed-PL into their 20's (which no one cared, or likely even noticed). By the time anyone hits 28-32, the XP gains dramatically slow down by comparison, and by mid-to-late 30's, it's down to maybe a level-a-run. All that aside, contribution is what matters and even if that level 10 only did one point of damage to a Rikti, if that Rikti was one that none of the other team members damaged, then great, we all get credit for one more kill! The other thing to remember is that, until they hit 35 and can get the Vanguard badge, they're not earning any V-Merits, which is the key aspect of why people even do the MSR in bulk since you can cash those in for regular Merits. In regards to AFK, I think you'd be massively disappointed if you really knew how many people tab out or just plan go AFK during those raids. It's not that hard to set an AoE on autofire, find an "active" player (usually a Blaster, Squid, or non-Tank Melee) not on your team, and target through them. MSR's are all about piling bodies into AoE's and making sure you get a point of damage on every Rikti you possibly can in order to get credit when they die get arrested. The more things you hit, the more XP and V-Merits you earn. MM's are the most flexibly notorious for this as there's nearly nothing more extensive they need to do other than drop their pets, buff, target through their T3 pet, plant their most useful tool on Auto-fire, and... take a nap. Basically, you're not really ever going to be fully cognizant of "leechers" or "afkers" or the fact that some of those cases, the most efficient thing someone can do is just put their Fireball on auto-fire, auto-target, and chill.