Doomguide2005

Yep don't skip Freezing Rain. And procs don't work well in it either. Also don't bother enhancing the damage most of those damage tics you see in game, all those 1's, are rounded up from the actual. First and foremost it's about the recharge to enable getting it out vs every mob and with it the debuffs particularly the -resist. The other thing you want to ensure is that you can hit your foe. Going heavy on procs can frequently mean the power is light on slotted enhancement for accuracy. If you don't hit you won't do any damage proc or otherwise. Unfortunately I can't currently access or use Mids', my only internet is by phone. Adding a Kismet +6% would help. Global +accuracy via sets is another way to get your final to hit up while heavy into procs. How much all of Earth's defense debuff will help depends a lot on what you typically fight ... the Purple Patch can hurt vs up level. It's a good example of the importance of getting Freezing Rain out for every mob. Stacking FR and QS is a great way to help ensure the following powers do hit (and further the defdebuffs)

Can't check my HC level 50's atm, but my very first 50 on Live was about 750 hours though granted I was in no particular hurry. In comparison my first level 50 Green Machine (Emp/Rad/Dark) took about 250 hours and that was definitely fast at the time.

Maybe it's just because my only internet is via phone or ???, but the link doesn't work for me @Psyonico But yes find the Repeat Offenders website. Green Machine was one of their SG's on Freedom. It now has a home on Everlasting as Psy said. There's also a group of folks who play defenders also on Everlasting but its defenders rather than specifically Empathy. Contact @Psylenz0511 There's a thread in the Defender forums with more details. Doomguide aka Reyna, Rianna etc..

Can't get in game or Mids' but try Dynamic mode (iirc) to place slots more freely, independent of level. My own build priorities are for recharge, then more recharge and then some more. Mitigation is a combination of keeping Regen Aura to minimal cooldown (+regeneration), teammates, inspires and damage resistance. I didn't worry about defense at all unless it was intended to be a solo oriented build. These days I might try a little less recharge in exchange for some defense on a team build particularly when/if running on small teams (<5). HO, HA - So I'd be using Preventative Medicine 6 slotted in either HO or HA then using either Panacea or Doctored Wounds in the other 5 slotted. Resurrect - usually skipped but if not I'd go with an Endred. It's not a cheap power for end usage and if only one teammates down the Vigilance buff isn't going to help much and invariably it'll seem like RA just wore off. If more than one is down ... well the team is not likely to wait for Rez to recharge (they'll make wakies, use temp powers, self rez powers etc). I'd generally save it for some one critical. Clear Mind - *shrug* base slot whatever. See above posts about use though. Fortitude - anywhere from 3 to 6 slots wide variety of options of IOs or HOs. 3 Membranes and a LotG recharge global gives a lot for the slots. Recovery Aura - 2 rech boosted or 3 slotted > rech, endmod/rech x2. I generally try to keep the recharge of this and Regen Aura within a few seconds of each other but that's a QoL thing. When ones recharged so is the other, position and fire them off together. No keeping track of both of them. RegenAura - 5 slot Panacea or Doctored Wounds. Adrenaline Boost - generally 5 slot Panacea or Doctored Wounds. I'll usually still add a 6th slot for Endmod/recharge but with crashless Nukes being a thing it really isn't needed the base +recovery should more than do 99.99% of the time. I'd love to see Assault earlier in the build particularly on Sonic Blast ... Assault is solid but with Sonic Blast you're effectively giving everyone even more +damage owing to the to the -resistance of your blasts.

If I'm not mistaken AE 801 is a series of missions -> 801.1, 801.2, 801.3 and I believe 801.4. If I understood @Linea correctly each is designed to create increasing challenge and stressing different aspects of mitigation. All I know is running my HC Claws/SR thru them as a sidekick was ... brutal, but as the build went from upper 30's to 50 I went from dying/barely hanging on to "faster, stronger, better".

@Hjarkiscaling problems? Not following you, and yes pet(s) are clearly important to some support sets, others not so much (Fire/Kin controller vs Cold/Ice defender). But damage output, pets or not, is not an issue ... capped damage plus severely resistance and regen debuffed targets are highly likely even given an end game AV debuff resistances and the purple patch. Note that AV resistance to debuffs does not apply vs -resistance if I'm reading wiki correctly. That is even if the net value of the debuff is tiny now turn it around and apply a leagues worth. I'm a bit out of the loop as I was just hitting Incarnate levels on my first HC characters when the computer died on me so memories are 8+ yrs old. But what happens when a leagues worth of Holds start landing on AVs without mez protection. Triangles I'm quite sure aren't enough for any AVs for whom a discussion involving solo characters stacking mag 50 in holds apply.

I get that, but either way it's another set of enhancements and the expense. And we are talking a level 50 looking to invest, at least in this case, into a build. That implies a certain level of commitment right there. And the 2nd+ builds don't require full IO sets either ... unless of course they are enjoying it enough to make the investment.

Heck we have multiple builds. Use them --> team build, chaos build, herdicane build, stunning build, ranged build, melee build. More variety of builds types than build slots ... no wonder I got altitis.

@fitzsimmons ahh that makes sense.

Curious, they shouldn't go flying, the power has no knock*. Stagger around some perhaps ... cages is probably a good idea anyway but I'd probably use it after my alpha.

This is sound advice. Have you picked an Epic. Mine was and is Stone. Seismic Smash is very potent melee attack and for me Fissure is another stun to go with Stalagmites and Thunderclap as my build rarely uses Hurricane and focuses on stunning the mob(s) into oblivion. Plus it will hold another FF proc. And sorry only internet is this phone so unable to post/view Mids' or get in game currently. Totally blows I find HC and the computer up and keels over ☹ 3 months later ... the universe hates me.

@HjarkiWhat's your thought on pairing with /Cold. No experience with Darkness Control and most of my Cold, at high level anyway, is as a defender but I've been intrigued by Dark/Cold.

I'm biased a bit (had a lvl 50 Cold/Ice on Live and it was a favorite) but I'll second a Cold/Ice defender. Not only adding even more slow/-recharge and Holds from Ice blast but all the buff and debuffs from Cold. The other option that's always strong for a dedicated pair is Empathy ... in this case Emp/Ice for theme and all that stacking of Ice blast again. Edit: And if really set on a controller while haven't tried it personally it screamed 'try me' is a Dark/Cold controller.

Agree with the overall theme in thread. As in not a trap, fight/pull from spawn point if expecting trouble, folks often guilty of face-planting while holding full trays of inspires, and have a set of inspires to rez quickly when needed. Often that's wakie, bf, blue/greens. Sometimes especially if unsure if I'm rezzing too close/might re-aggro instead of or in addition to blues/greens I'll first use 1+ purple/orange to hit the defense soft cap and buff resistance. Usually I have to create the purples, maybe a short wait for them to drop in team settings or slap myself for not having used them to stay upright in the first place.

The problem with Mako is 2-fold. First he's a +4 end game AV ... he resists things like defdebuffs like crazy. Combine that with his Elude power and you'd need silly high amounts of defdebuff to make hitting him easy. Easier, especially with a bunch of support ATs, to buff the team's To Hit via things like Tactics, Forge, Fortitude, etc.. He fears it in much the same way an SR user fears to hit buffs but not defdebuffs. Otherwise the actual -def in endgame content is of minimal value where most high end builds are built with enough acc/to hit to reliably hit +4 mobs. But like many things in end game play the degree of optimization can vary wildly between characters on a team/league so ymmv considerably. Edit: No idea if it's been done or not but it was a relatively common event on Live to run various end game TFs with all defenders or all support but I don't recall seeing it done on the Incarnate Trials ... has it been done or being done? The greatest strength of defenders, corruptors, controllers etc. isn't with a particular set really its in their ability to team to stack those buffs and debuffs to the caps and beyond something non support sets can't truly do

Not familiar enough with BR to comment but one of Ice's strengths is the holds in several of its blasts, a lot of soft control overall.

Mine is Earth/Storm/Stone. She lives in melee, usually surrounded by stunned mobs. Stalagmites, Thunderclap and Fissure. Anything not stunned earns itself a slap upside the head with Seismic Smash. No Hurricane atm ... but both of mine on Live had it though rarely used. Hard to go wrong really Plant/Storm is a very strong pairing to add to. Try them both.

Yeah, much as we might like to see it I believe HC's current policies do not allow videos to be posted.

To the best of my knowledge those amounts are fixed and not dependent on AT. Personally my first suspicion would be looking at the wrong line in combat attributes display.

For me it's much as @discokat has eluded to. A combination of limited game time, particularly quality teaming time and knowledge (last played in issue 23) of what converters and attuned IO's were and how they worked meant using reward merits was simply faster, easier and didn't require immediately learning a bunch of new information. I had plenty of old stuff to relearn already. Now that old stuff is refreshed and new knowledge acquired I'll probably start using converters (and no doubt learning more) but there's still that matter of game time or lack thereof. I can earn merits, xp, inf and most importantly levels while running missions and tf's. I can't do that while sitting in the auction house and/or using converters though over time I'm sure that process would get easier and faster the more I did it. Worth or value, in other words, is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Nod, it's what I've been doing. It's the only change I've ever made there (as far as I can recall). It does sometimes, and always has to my knowledge, lead to some fairly large accuracy numbers reported such as 458%. Vaguely recall from Live thread(s) discussing it was a result of how it reported out the value with anything 95 and up meaning you had effectively maxed your final chance ToHit value. Just wanted some clarity. Thanks.

Can you expand on this? I've been doing this since 'forever' (many issues previous back on Live) as a way to ensure my builds are able to hit +4's. Never noticed an issue either in Mids' or in game with missing too much. Is it something new, my computer died and I haven't been in game or able to use Mids' since late February?

My guts tell me (and good bit of solo play with /sonic defenders) it's too single target to be 'fast' at solo stuff. Just look at the attack chain posted above. Deadly yes but very single target. Great on teams because 7 other characters also benefit from the large -resistance produced.

My gut, at this point essentially 8 yrs+ out of date, tells me no global and/or slotted accuracy doesn't work on a pseudo-pets attacks. It would just apply to the initial cast. Not sure about something like Tactics ... but if your CC are dealing damage and global accuracy from sets isn't anything to write home about I'm thinking it doesn't require it.

No idea. But I believe there is a tab for combat info for pets much as there is for characters, does their chance to hit provide any clue?