Doomguide2005

I've run where defeat = delete as well as defeat = remove from a themed (of defeat is 'death') SG. I enjoyed the challenge but those characters were created with that in mind. Attachment to the character was there but quite different from the attachment to my normal mains. For them no way no how would I run any of them through any 'actual removal'. I can't think of a reward that would be both reasonable and high enough to loose some of them again permanently as a risk outside of another Sunset. Recently my 5 yr old got a hold of the controls while I was afk for a couple minutes helping the wife. Got back and the top spot on my character list was 'open' and my absolutely most main character was gone. Well long story short he somehow moved her to another server and renamed her but the gut punch of several minutes while I found her, moved her back and renamed her to her original name was ... yeah not a chance there's a conceivable reward for that risk voluntarily. Edit: Hell if there was a way to lock at least a few characters so that it could not be deleted without maybe direct GM action I'd due that in a heartbeat.

Fortitude 60 second recharge and 120 sec duration. It's 2 teammates out of the box. While I generally start with melee types and blasters in particular I'm also going to be eyeballing who I'm having to heal most frequently, who's always going into the red and they may become a favored target. Sometimes that's the Tanker (particularly at sub 30 levels if the Tanker is still leveling). Sometimes it's an aggressive support player or the one guy who's not exemplared and all IO'd out. Two interesting notes. The first I've been told is true but haven't looked carefully at my logs to check, but the Gaussian's proc will fire when used to buff someone and that buff does go to the Empath. Handy if the next is one of your stronger attacks (nuke anyone). Second is if you use Power Boost or PBU before casting Fortitude the buff will last the entire duration of Fortitude not that of PB or PBU. And last even if you never plan on using your Blast attacks for God sake take several and slot for more IO set bonuses for recharge. Probably near half my global recharge comes from those attacks which are extremely valuable at making all those Heals and buffs come back faster for you to work your magic.

I'm at work currently. Will have a longer look when home. Thanks for your efforts. Hopefully can get stickied and others comments added in over time.

Very much. 1 to hold her attention and 7 support stacking buffs and debuffs on all.

Something is up then. Of course when I went back to look at the wiki article I noticed the Limits article makes no mention of creature minimum only player. And same for the article on Steath and Perception. So maybe there is more to it than the implied Perception minus Stealth = zero then they are utterly blinded I was left with from reading the articles a while back. But it doesn't jive with light testing i did back on Live with my characters but none of them were Flash Arrow or Smoke using just stealth of varying degrees because I distinctly remember being able to stand literally toe toe undetected. I'll have to run around a bit with my Ill /TA and a Power Analyzer to check it out some more.

A couple thoughts about Smoke and Flash Arrow. Either should safely reduce the targets perception to zero even if both the debuff is heavily resisted and applying the Purple Patch vs almost any mob (I'm not certain how or even if this is done). It's -450ft and worst case would probably be Snipers assuming they have resistance to the debuff as their base perception is 149ft. Biggest issue vs most Snipers will be getting into range for actually applying the debuff without being seen as you would need to trim off enough perception with your own stealth to reduce that perception to less than your Smoke or Flash Arrow's range (minimum of 69 ft of stealth. Secondly keep in mind a portion of Flash Arrow's To Hit debuff is unresistable (-7.5% + enhancement)

Very true. Stalagmites animates and effects the spawn very quickly which takes all the non-boss types out of the picture and makes moving in and following up with Thunderclap (Earth/Storm) much safer. And that usually takes out essentially everyone while Rocky and I pummel any bosses with a pair of Seismic Smash attacks plus the rest of /Storms damage goes to work.

Indeed! Probably one of the first foes to encourage me to learn custom target keybinds and macros to spot through the chaos of gfx on screen. And add -kb IOs or capability to a build (please, please let stand long enough to do something).

Biggest issue is the Purple Patch to defeat any +7 mob much less a +7 AV. Just scratching the surface you'll want stacked Tactics plus other To Hit buffs to ensure consistently landing blows (base to hit 20% then pile on hers and allies to hit debuffs at 1.77× effectiveness) while any of your debuffs get greatly reduced ( 0.08% effective prior to AV resistances etc). That 0.08 mod also effects your damage output which after everything else has to outpace her regeneration. You'll also need to counter intense endurance drain from all the Electric Blast effects while keeping folks upright (both alive and literally upright against all the knockback). Winnable I think yes but you're looking at a long long battle with ideally a fairly hand-picked team.

No those are their current level. The non-Superior versions of the ATOs are the Gargatuan value. When catalyzed they become the Superior versions and carry the Ultimate value.

I believe Trap's Triage Beacon does similar things. And as an example of the rule to always take into account the sets and play style of the build and player you can turn Thunder Clap into a useful power. First paired with Dark Blast you have a second mag 2 stun. That's enough to stun a boss. Second there's a temp power called Stun Grenade you can buy thru p2w up to 200 charges as I recall which is mag 3 and any Defender or even AT can use. Duration is relatively short but more than enough to help break up an alpha by your foe.

And I've discovered a love for the temp power "Stun Grenade". Even my Claws/SR has taken to using this while exemplared down to lower levels such as Posi 1 and 2. While my Emp/Rad/Dark still uses them at lvl 50+3. For the scrapper exemplared low it's not so much about her survival/surviving the alpha but not being a Tanker or Brute her ability to hold aggro is much slimmer when the rest of the team opens fire. But as she moves in Focus on a boss (kd and plenty aggro), Spin (just before the debuffs and damage start coming in from the team) followed up or even proceeded by hitting them all with a Stun Grenade. She may not have taunted but she does cause a lot of staggering which both helps her make the alphas even more survivable but limits the mob from firing at pretty much every team mate. The Empath just continues that sort of behavior to help herself while destroying a mob even at high levels. Surprising how few lvl 50+ mobs actually have protection against such if you get the first hit in. But all you have to do is look at the effectiveness of AoE stun attacks to realize the effectiveness overall of stuns to take out the trash.

See the HCwiki article entitled "Enhancement Set Bonuses". Goes into detail. Same article containing information about the Rule of Five. There are 7 colors linked to 7 different descriptors from Tiny to Ultimate. Gargantuan is the 6th while Ultimate is the largest, i.e. 7th. Each is paired to a multiplier of a base value (which is the 1st descriptor, Tiny) for a given aspect (Accuracy, Recharge, etc.) of an enhancement.

Two major things (at least) are at play here I think. First there are a lot more players with characters at or near the soft caps. Second there are and always have been a lot of defdebuffs among various foe groups. The overall increase in characters with higher if not capped defenses has led to a greater expectation of "I will hardly be hit". Before players more less expected to get hit and rarely noticed cascade failure if when it occurred. Blasters were 'glass' cannons. Now those glass cannons are soloing up lvl large mobs with the not unreasonable expectation of not being hit. But that has also led to cascade failure being much more noticeable and remembered when it occurs owing to the prevalence of defdebuff attacks that really been there all along. This not to say Devs haven't spiced things up a bit or auto hit attacks aren't a thing but it does make me wondered how many of the auto hits are masquerading as cascade failure induced by previous attacks. Certainly would explain at least some of why my SR main rarely notices "auto hit" attacks in any significant frequency.

Those mobs (certain Rularuu) specifically have a large bonus to their To Hit ... large as in would make 4* Hard Mode small. It's +100% as memory serves me, they also ignore Stealth. Likewise DE eminators give off various buffs to DE in range and again one of those is a brutally large +100% to hit. If I recall right that one is a 'Quartz' and dropped by Guardian DE. Kill them asap or move drawing the DE out of the buff. Or invite a couple Force Field Defenders with Power Boost or Power Build Up to buff the daylights out of you. Cimerorans probably are stacking some not insignificant defdebuffs which with no or small DDR can rapidly induce cascade defense failure in a character. PS: Players are not limited to +45% defense hence the term soft cap or Incarnate cap. The actual hard cap is ~175% or better and based on AT (Tankers sit around 225%). Some auto hit powers are in the game to promote not just standing in place and pounding such as Super Stunners. Move away let ranged attackers finish them or use a ranged attack yourself (epics, temp powers, vet powers etc.). Many, many hours on SR tell me there's really not that many troublesome mobs and most can be dealt with via thought, situational awareness and preparation.

Empathy A buff and healing primary requiring no targetable foes to function. I think it really shines on small teams (under 6) and or lower levels. Most of my builds spend a lot of time exemplared to lower levels running TFs. Healing Aura: The t1 healing PBAoE power and sole power capable of healing the Empath (plus the potential buff from Regeneration Aura). I'll typically use either 5 or 6 slots focused on Healing sets with recharge set bonus. Doctored Wounds or Panacea in 5 slots or Preventative Medicine in 6 slots is typical while building for a teaming Empath build. Heal Other: The t2 single target heal power it is unable to be used on the casting Empath. It heals roughly twice the health of the t1. Usually I'll slot this with the alternate number of slots I used on HA. If HA got 6 this will get 5 or if it was 5 I'll give it 6, again slotting for Healing set for a recharge bonuses. Absorb Pain: The t3 heal. Overall I consider this a trap choice and almost never take the power on any build particularly for a high end, high recharge endgame build. This is largely owing to the intersection of playstyle and the powers drawbacks being a bit severe compared to what is necessary in the vast majority of game play. My playstyle is typically that of an "offender", a defender who slots and more importantly uses their secondary blasts. As such particularly with a blast set with PBAoE attacks can draw aggro which brings us to the second reason, the drawbacks to the power. It pretty much prevents you from being healed not a good thing if you are drawing aggro. Last the amount healed while large is rarely going to make or break the difference between life or death of your targeted ally when compared to rapidly spamming HO/HA back to back as needed a cycle time of right around 4 sec to fire back to back. But that is the one advantage of AP it is a very large heal to hit someone with if a second very large damage spike is likely to follow typically by an endgame AV. If I did grab the power I'd probably either slot a Heal set with recharge in mind or 2 slot it with 50+5 Heal IOs. Resurrect: The second power and t4 Resurrect I rarely take. In this case there's nothing particularly wrong with the power there are just so many alternate ways to get someone back up and in play that the power choice is easily wasted. There's crafting or carry Awakens (which as I understand, it can still be done during even 4* hard mode play when most inspires are disabled), various self rezzes and just about every other defender with a rez power the Rez offers more buffs to either the targeted dead ally and/or the caster than the very plain generic Rez of Empathy. Instead I stand ready to remove any stun, use a Fort, Heal as needed or even use my blasts to drop or neutralize their attackers. When taken Ill slot with a single endurance IO as the high end cost might be tough to come up with the end despite Vigilance if its been a tough long battle as Murphy always seems to pop up right about then. Recharge is not really going to do much given the lengthy cooldown teams typically wont wait for you rez to recharge repeatedly and well range is a bit silly to enhance while working off a base 15ft range. Clear Mind: Almost always take and use this t5 wide coverage single target mez protection as a one slot wonder. Typically I slot with a Range IO to get that one guy who always seems to get in trouble waaay over there. But it truly doesn't matter 99.99+% of the time what sits in the slot. There is some debate if this power is worth taking/having available in the endgame as between Clarion, Hybrid, defense amplifiers, other Defender powers and a tendency for players to have high if not soft capped defense avoiding mez altogether in the process. In turn this makes some consider it skippable (somewhat the way I consider Resurrect skippable I suppose). I see it through the eyes of someone who exemplars frequently running into characters even armored melee characters who still lack their mez protection or like Practice Brawler can have gaps in uptime. I also want everyone to enjoy teaming and as someone who plays a lot of support characters it can be frustrating to be standing around due to getting mezzed watching everyone else play ... even when or if most of us are individually not "necessary" to the overall teams survival and success on a lvl 50+ team. Fortitude: The t6 is a single target buff and one of the premiere buffs in Empathy. I'd immediately suspect some weird off the wall build if a character didn't include this power fairly early on. Almost without exception I'll take it at 12th and drop my lvl 13 slots in this power. Heck my solo builds have included Fortitude. Possible slotting is all over the place and largely dependent on the needs and desires of the character and the build. There's a thread elsewhere in the Defender forums where I list a whole mess of options and they range from using 3 slots up to all 6. Fortitude buffs defense, to hit and damage. Base recharge is half the base duration making it possible to cover 2 allies with no slotting or global recharge, It just gets better from there. Recovery Aura: The t7, and t8 which follows, are the two PBAoEs both of which effect the caster as well as allies in a 25ft radius. They possess the same recharge (500 sec) and durations (90 sec). It is not possible even at the recharge cap to make either perma but it can be reduced to under 60 seconds in a high recharge build fairly readily before Incarnate considerations and is typically one of my build goals and reason for going all out on recharge. Recovery Aura boost endurance recovery and even at the base amount tends to be more than enough endurance recovery to keep. I tend towards 3 slots which I usually slot with a single recharge IO and 2 Endmod/Recharge IO's. The overall importance of Recovery Aura tends to get overshadowed by lvl 45+ and Incarnate up play with the advent of mature builds, Regeneration Aura: The t8 which buffs the regeneration of those effected. I tend to think regeneration is undervalued by many. Its effects are fairly subtle. I'll use a Healing set with a set bonus of recharge in mind in 5 slots. The other thing I typically aim for is to keep both Auras on the same over all timers so both recharge in roughly the same time. That's one less thing to worry about. If one is recharged then both are or the other is about to recharge in a couple seconds. Position then fire them off. I find I tend to due this while the team is clumping up to finish off the last couple foes. Adrenaline Boost: Arguably this t9 is one of the best single target buffs in the game boosting regeneration 500+, recovery 800+, and recharge 100% plus special. The special is a potent 80% resistance to all sorts of movement and recharge debuffs making the target nearly immune to those debuffs. AB plus Regeneration Aura can boost regeneration to near the regeneration hard cap for most support characters. This is 1600% when enhanced towards the 2000% of the cap and does not include the characters base regeneration. Thoughts and comments as always welcomed.

While Fort can go on roughly 4 while PBU is active and all 7 allies with a high end build. And add both +Damage and +To Hit (boosted to hit) to those targeted allies. That DDR, however, is a dang sweet addition to FF's bubble making the provided defense harder to remove via debuffs. Edit: And based on these facts I'd say a definite edge belongs to Force Fields on large (6+ Allies) and especially shielding even a small League while I'd say an edge belongs to Empathy on a small team owing to the other Empath buffs (and my own bias as an Empath fan).

Little late to reply but there are edge cases where the ability to stack PB can be useful. The first and most common is vs the large mag stun of Rommy's rez. Likewise there's instances where having kb protection in a build can be useful if like me these days you don't auto PB (for example you have Hasten on auto) or even necessarily run it 24-7 (or get scrapper locked and just forget to click) since as it can be used when mezzed. The kb protection keeps you where you were if your mezzed and knocked at the same time. Being SR means an awful lot of mez just doesn't hit in the first place. Not having it up and running tends to happen both by 'oops I forgot to click moving between spawns' or these days because I'll be attacking non stop in hordes of foes or vs an AV/GM and don't wish to take a ~2 sec break/loss of damage involved in using PB when the mez is rare to happen (and I'll just take the time to click when it does happen). PS i would also raise an eyebrow in slotting for set bonuses via a heal set while not fully enhanced damage in Siphon Life first

It's basically saying the damage resistance resist damage debuffs ... but specifically vs smashing damage by smashing damage resistance. As just like us critters have damage resistance values that vary by damage type done.

Or Power Build Up. Respectively from Soul Mastery and Power Mastery epic power sets.

Just going to point out that Share Pain can stack itself and has a 15 sec recharge. If you're "insane" enough a high recharge build could use it several times prior to one all out attack (rather than several buffed by 31.5 over the 15 seconds of up time).

If I'm not mistaken, my memory not being what it was, it's because you cannot enhance the resistance aspect unlike Cold where you can.

For what it's worth your alternate builds aren't required to have the same epics or pool powers. Only your primary and secondary has to be the same (but the individual powers of the set can differ).

It's just plain really good. Primary, Secondary It's just good

Not sure about being at the tippy top but Electric/Fire Blaster can put out silly amounts of PBAoE damage with the advantage of doing a differing damage type compared to Fire/Fire while draining mobs of endurance. In the presence of another end drainer this can be very fast and effective even vs +4 mobs. Largest drawback is it's a lot of DoT damage.