Doomguide2005

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.

Have two Elec Blast characters. The Elec/Fire Blaster is a PBAoE monster sitting in the low 40's and a relatively newly 50 Emp/Elec Defender. Have a great deal of fun with both. But the blaster clearly does far more damage though the advent of the shocked mechanics and Endmod sets with damage aspects the difference is not as noticeable as it once was as the Defender pretty much flatlines most mobs (+2 or less) very rapidly. Both pretty much live or die in melee range. The Blaster just kills stuff like many before they can hurt him much while the Defender takes longer but is perhaps even safer due to foes having zero end to work with combined with HA and RA extremely rapidly. Mez would present far less threat in a Sentinel I presume with their armor options especially when not heavily IO'd from early on in the leveling process. And in that way it might be more like the Defender, slower but safer since the main threat to overcome in both Blaster or Defender would be mez as landing mez is going to suppress toggle defenses followed or accompanied by any defdebuffs causing cascade issues. Haven't tried it out yet but working on including a bunch of Tempest -end procs in the Defender to see if I can get around the minimum values of endurance AVs and GMs retain even with drain otherwise draining them as dry as they otherwise can get. Which seems to be about 15 end.

Help channel is sort of like stopping random folks on the street. Sometimes you get actual knowledge from someone knowledgeable, sometimes not so much ... kind of like the descriptive text now that I think about 🤪

My main is /SR and she approves this message. Of course I doubt her sanity.

My choice would be DM/SR if I wanted something familiar but new pairing (had the pairing on Live haven't run it here ... yet). Otherwise EA or Ice. My Claws/SR scrapper is very hard to kill despite a lack of self heal. I can see why @Without_Pauserecommends RoP as especially on a Brute with their higher resistance caps even if the scaling resists have kicked in hard Rune has room to push you higher without "wasting" the provided resistance.

Never tried that pairing either as a duo or dual boxing. My only concern would be using Share Pain as a damage boost while the partner is using PFF. The Share Pain user is going to effectively increase their threat and be unable to heal/regenerate as effectively while their partner is in a position to be unable to assist them.

All the above. Been a long time since I used the set on a Dominator but I'd never skip either Volcanic Gases or Stalagmites on my Controllers

Going to guess this is covered by the portion of the Threat equation called "AI Mod" or perhaps buried in a similar value in a similar equation related to "Run/Avoid/Afraid". This value is largely unknown per the wiki article and I'm just throwing that out for thought.

If all it takes is 10 tics in a 'short' period of time I'm surprised in some ways I don't get (notice?) more runners especially once I get into Incarnate abilities. Between procs, (Interface) Reactive, (Hybrid) Assault and DoT attacks the number of tics occuring fairly quickly is probably higher than i think or aware of occurring

I think the addition of a damage component to several Endmod sets plus the "shocked" mechanic has also made a large difference in play. You can now pursue both damage and effective end drain without impacting the other. Previously if you rigorously pursued end drain doing max damage was difficult at best. Now Musculature is the icing on the cake as you pursue both.

Yeah a single Elec drainer can be nasty and fun. 2 or more and a lot of mobs even higher level mobs will be near instantly at 0 end (the non AVs). For an Emp/Elec who teams once RA is a thing you shouldn't have to worry to much about having the end for multiple Leadership toggles. Just focus on getting your recharge high and rely on inspires and teammates for mitigation.

But, but ... so life forever. Sounds like plot, a Snarky plot.

@UltraAlt The first part of the response, well I guess I wasn't clear but I agree overall with you. There's likely a large degree of annoyed and frustrated emotion behind the OP's " chasing half" of each spawn down but I've never come close to having to chase half a given spawn down. The few runners I do see I generally don't have to chase. Both Focus and Shockwave are ranged attacks ... so they just get whacked at distance no 'chase' involved. Worst case my movement speeds are sufficient to readily and rapidly over take the fairly rare runners. As this part wasn't directed at anyone specific, just the thread in general. @Ston mentioned the AI causes foes to flee if they take 10 tics of damage and it made me think about how scrappers with taunt auras how those auras in addition to benefitting the scrapper also tend debuff. The debuff I suspect would also cause a response to run much like damage. The taunt is there to help counter the additional "RUN" influence of the debuff. Maybe, I'm just guilty of thinking outloud in this case (and running out of typing time prior to work).

This and no I don't think it's due to higher or more mobs. Granted my main is Claws, so often, the runners, if any, die 30 ft away as I chase them down with Focus or Shockwave instead of Quickness, Swift and Sprint. PS: Any damage causes Threat as does any Debuff value. Put some DoT with Debuffs built in you have a perfect tool for 1)creating threat/drawing aggro and if Ston is correct about the AI it's also a good set up for causing runners ... and that my be another reason some of those sets have a taunt aura to help off set this factor in Threat.

Bit late but afaik his is already doable. The drop ships can be attacked. It was certainly done on Live.

Nobody has mentioned you can download and set up your own server and tweak it to your hearts content. I''very never done it so no idea what if any limits to changing things exist or how coding/computer savvy you need to be. But you'd literally be the only one there. Check for posts by NOPE tagged appropriately. If I'm not mistaken it's how some of the other public servers were created.

I do my best as well to keep them in view especially if things seem to be heading south. But a number of my powers both offensively and buff/debuff are PBAoE's meaning some are invariably behind me out of LoS (Auras, Irradiate, Short Circuit, Nukes) even assuming I'm not otherwise blinded by the gfx. And being at the edge sometimes can mean I'm out of range of the murder ball and even the additional second or two it takes my 60+ yr old brain/reflexes to respond/move can quite literally mean life or death when on one of my Empaths.

What you see as a problem the Faithful Fans of Fallout see as a feature 🤪

Very similar. Usually I'm also prioritizing recharge over defense or resistance at least on a "team" vs solo build. That said I tend to tweak builds towards more defense than I typically would have on Live for any given build. And for Hard Mode or Incarnate content it's even more likely that I give a little recharge potential for a bit more defense. Immobilize powers are a must have for me. Really dislike trying to follow Rommy and other track stars all over the map

This was more or less what I came to understand. Extreme damage on a Controller vs Defender vs Scrapper vs Blaster all meant different damage amounts done. The only value was in the relative damage within a given set (nevermind AT). In otherwords 80% flavor text, 20% misleading bull to a new player.

I'm guessing if this is the case it's for the same reason I used Confront long ago. Pre-IO, when TOs and DOs were a thing and I was Science Origin. A bunch of Vahz puking all over you was and is still a lot of Toxic pain only now it's getting multiple 4☆ foes down on the team rather than Vahz 😳

This^ Especially if it draws attention to a mez icon that's really all I need. At that point I either use what I have (either knowing or hoping it works) or get ready with HO, Fort, Cosmic Burst, etc., knowing I can't effect it directly.

As a frequent player of support and Empathy in particular I'd be totally on board with any and all additional cues especially on the team/league windows. Visual cues like the floating zzZZZzzz's coming off or cowering postures for fear are great ... if I could see them. But all too often they're lost in the glare of gfx on my screen so some cue (beyond watching for icons) in the team window would be great. And my focus is very heavily devoted to watching the team window. PS: Even just outlining or something to make the mez icon more obvious would help.