Doomguide2005

Well Toggle Man probably looks at it longly I'm sure. Maybe I shouldn't mention I've seen it used to work on damage taken badges. Step into Tyrants? lava beds after going into Rest next to the pool by using 20 breakfree to overcome the immobilization. Caveat: I've no idea if this trick still works, it was a long time ago when l saw it done.

1. I approach it a couple ways. First I'll probably just take and try both and see how it works for me. Second I'll look at threads in the forums and see where the consensus seems to lie and ideally why. And again compare that for my playstyle and what I tend to prioritize. 2. Pretty much the same as my answer above. These days I also worry about it less in general than many issues ago. Multiple builds plus ease of obtaining respecs means I can afford to 'feel things out' and experiment more readily. 3. No not always. I'll pretty much never take Elude on an SR character these days, for example. It really offers nothing for my build. But again my 2nd and/or 3rd builds I might deliberately try something odd or 'not normal' like seeing if I can make Elude work in a build specifically meant to tackle Rularuu (and their defense obliterating +100% To Hit buff) for example. In general once I feel comfortable with a set you can throw away the words 'never' concerning pretty much any power. 4. See all the above 🙂 including Max and Luminara's replies.

The only thing I'd add is to keep in mind are debuffs are resisted. So the outgoing 10% debuff might only be effectively equal to a 6% defense buff. It's almost never a 1 for 1 trade particularly in fights where the defense truly makes it life or tasting floor. Good thing Dark can pile on a lot of To Hit debuff 😁

Musculature (Radial) can also buff Endmod helping both damage and drain as a result (as well as recovery of the user). As for draining itself I think it's fairly indisputable that having no endurance and no recovery is crippling. The problem stems more from "but being dead is even more crippling" and often by the time a solo end drainer has crippled a foe through end drain the foe is also nearly drained of health (and if they traded away the -end/-recovery for a bit more damage ...). The trick is draining tougher, higher rank (bosses, EBs, AVs etc.) foes fast enough to mitigate their damage output faster than damage will defeat them and then keep them there until defeated. Radial should be considerable help in keeping damage in the red while boosting the -recovery and -end of all those Elec powers.

Interesting. I'm thinking it would vary a bit by AT. My first scrapper (Claws/SR) by 20th level would probably have a fair number of special IO's beyond even Miracle, Numinas and Perf Shifter like the +defense uniques +/- LotG def/+recharge, Kismet. My Emp/Dark (3rd character) on the other hand would be nearly the same outside of maybe using common IO's and the substitutes for a travel power and Fitness.

In Mids the tab, iirc it's been a while since I could check, called exemplar and base effects, there's a place where you can choose your base to hit value. The default is set to 75% vs +0 foes. You can change it to whatever value you want. Mine is typically set to 39%, the value against +4 foes. That plus the slider for Soul Drain and you can see what your final chance is vs anywhere from 1 foe in range to fully saturated.

Yeah it's got a bad rep. Takes time to stack and work, it's an offensive toggle so get mezzed and it's down. Neither of the Holds is 100% so it can entirely miss even minions (though that's a tad unlucky, it's not super rare either). Not enough knowledge on procs but the Lockdown proc for another mag 2 used to be a thing. Enhanced duration should help with stacking the two holds to get a boss. No longer sure how often the power checks to see if a hold works (every 2 seconds??). Edit: if not aware it actually creates 2 hold attempts. One for mag 1 at 80% chance and a second at mag 2 for a 50% chance. If both are in effect you get the boss hold. Note the mag 1 and mag 2 stack with each other, they do not self stack but renew the hold duration as far as I know (per the wiki).

It does. Problem I think stems from several things. Long cool down to duration (can't make it perma). The set already has Lingering Radiation which while half the value (500% vs 1000%) can be perma, that's more than enough -regen 99.99% of the time. And unless you're a robot does no damage itself. Fallout is the actual nuke of the set if looking for damage. That said it's a big AoE, not single target. Want to take the wind out of a bridge worth of Cyclops EB's and Cimmie bosses EM Pulse is going to be a big help compared LR or Benumb. Follow up with some suicidal teammate with Fallout/Veng/Mutate and those Cyclops are going to have a rough day. Change that to Fallout, then hit with EM Pulse while everyone else unloads.

Probably the Repel aspect causing the scatter. Unless the Wiki is out of date the knock effect has only a 5% chance to occur. Despite all my Storm characters I don't tend to use Hurricane. But that's entirely my own bias/playstyle I'm too much an in your face scrapper sort even with my squishies. Running with the Repeat Offenders I've seen some awesomely capable Hurricane users, but its definitely not a power for everyone and takes a lot of skill and practice to use well.

My Kin/Psy defender took it way back, probably i6 or so. Saved the day once while a friend and I were duo'ing. We'd triggered a large DE ambush while in Skyway. It was a small backyard sort of area, fenced in on 3 sides, a building on the 4th. DE started popping over the fence. On came Repel. We probably saw some of those DE 5 or 6 times. They'd hop over, Repel send them flying right back over while my friends blaster whittled them down. Think that was one of the few DE fights either of us ever had where neither of us got mezzed. Giant backyard popcorn machine 😛.

Best 'abuse' I've come up with is my Cold/Ice/Power defender. PBU+Tactics+Aim yields a huge, albeit short term, boost to To Hit. Highly recommended for landing Benumb on Mako post Elude or Paragon Protectors who've gone MoG or Elude.

Ah but Claws does ... Focus. Or just slowly approach, then retreat quickly when the nearest reacts. Granted Vahz do have some weird threat/aggro mechanics. Or take your Taunt, in this case Confront. Of course this points to another factor in trying to replicate i0 characters. Knowledge. Outside of Beta testers, any critter in i0 would be largely unknown to the player base and individual player. There was no combat attributes or power analyzers or real numbers. Even the forums would know less specifics. Nothing is scarier than the unknown.

Fallout is a potent Nuke that also strongly debuffs any survivors (as in To Hit, Defense, Damage, and Damage Resistance all get debuffed). But unless you build around it it's very niche as well. Ideally it works packaged with supporting powers. 1) First you need a corpse. 2) The corpse needs to be in the right place. The best way to ensure the corpse is in the right spot was Recall Friend. Now it's, I believe, going to fall on Teleport Target. 3) The corpse needs to be still a corpse. On a PUG even if it is in the right place all too often they'll either Self rez or get rezzed by someone else if they aren't forewarned and remember. And ideally their prompt needs to be off. 4) Vengeance - used beforehand ... sweetness 5) Mutation - unless you're into dragging around a corpse 🙄 rezzing them only seems fair (PS: do not go afk when teamed with a bunch of the RO Network's FFoF -> Faithful Fans of Fallout). Mutation is a rez with some nice buffs applied to the now live teammate. Several Fallout blasts triggered together will turn even a +4 AV into squishy mush fairly quickly.

Short Answer: what @Frostbitersaid. Longer Answer: it will vary from build to build and with your difficulty setting. I usual find myself looking for To Hit and outside of powers, inspires, 'other' the Kismet unique is the only way to get a To Hit bonus via sets/set bonus afaik. Pretty much all my builds use it. And the remainder probably run Tactics (and many likely both). Against upscale (read vs +4s) foes To Hit is a much better choice for the effort. You need a LOT of accuracy to strike something starting with a base to hit of 39.

Yes, the Brute damage cap is significantly higher than other ATs. I believe it is currently 650% (iirc). Even with full fury and enhancements well into the red on Mids I doubt you'll be there without further buffs.

A Storm/Sonic is one of the earlier posts I saw about defenders soloing an AV. Harder targets don't go flying as much ... and softer targets just die bouncing around. And IOs make bouncing more, um, vertical and less horizontal in nature without losing the mitigation involved.

Cold is in fact a beastly good debuffer. Their shields would be very helpful to a resistance set like /Fire as well. There are a lot of strong choices to pair with Sonic Blast. Hard to go wrong. You also got a thousand character slots. Make several different pairings and see which 'sticks'.

Yes you were. First steps in a thousand mile journey and all that. Hence the "off into the deep end you go" comment at the end of my post. I've no doubt we're both well acquainted with trip.

Yep, though hopefully as you do so Phanty and PA are grabbing the aggro ... leaving you to debuff the daylights out the foe.

Generally defense is better mitigation than resistance. With resistance you still have to deal with mez since while the damage was reduced any mez coming with it is still there to stun, sleep, hold etc. you. S/L plus Energy are chosen to cap because they're the major portion of the damage type(s) you'll face endgame. That said unless you use Choking Cloud you've no reason to get into melee range, hover plus capped range defense and strong resists could also work as long as you can keep them at range.

Well I think I'd lean towards the Kin vs Sonic. Both the DP/Martial and his alternate TW/Fire will love a Kin. The Brute has a high damage cap, plenty of room for Kinetics buffs. Flip side is the Bots are ranged, it'll be harder to buff both players and bots with the +damage. The Sonic shields will help both the players and in general the debuffs of Sonic work regardless of positioning of bots and players. The DP and Brute, whichever he's running, will both happily take Disruption Field into melee where it'll help everyone. But yes in the end either would work well.

Or Adrenaline Boost (+100% recharge) and Fortitude (+31% damage). Not to mention the other aspects both those powers boost.

What are your friends running?

Begs the question as to what are your two friends playing? Both a Kin and Sonic Resonance can be potent force multipliers. The Kin will put someone near or at the damage cap. A Sonic/Sonic will seriously debuff resistance. Someone at the damage cap can only see bigger orange numbers if the target is getting resistance debuffed. If you primarily play either with your two friends or solo then taking into account what they're playing would be a good idea for synergy.

Yes, that was the author I had buried in my foggy old brain.