Doomguide2005

I started on and my main ever since i3 is and was a scrapper. So way back when I first started trying blasters well I tended to get my glass cannon smashed in melee. Until, on my 3rd or 4th try, I rolled a Fire/Energy. Now she was more "blapper" than jouster but I did learn to joust with her as well (Hello Longbow Wardens) as foes/bosses got tougher in later levels. The pure raw damage of Fire Blast meant no way other than learning to kill, be killed or joust. No sleeps, no holds, no mez or KB outside the rather random stuns and KB of my melee attacks to help survive. Nothing but my melee secondary and learning how to move lay between me and floor tasting.

First off Huge fan of Combat Jumping. Virtually every character I have runs CJ. That said one of my recent characters, an Emp/Rad, is at times running Evasive Maneuvers and Fly and as @Outrider_01said it has immobilize protection as well and and gives me a great deal of aerial quickness and precise movements while in flight. Further I almost always run around at ground level with both off especially indoors to conserve end (even when my Aura is up). But it counters immobilize just fine, if I get "stuck" or it's to my advantage to get airborne I'll turn it on and typically become mobile again. She's just level 31 atm so it also wouldn't surprise me if I pick up CJ later in the build as it's so dang useful for ground movement and of course it can take an enormous number of unique and special IOs (as does Evasive Maneuvers). I'd also note Evasive Maneuvers defensive bonus applies out of combat whether you're airborne or on the ground. In short I've been quite happy with changing out CJ for Evasive Maneuvers plus Fly and typically by now I've grabbed CJ.

Outside a few lowbie TFs my Empathy/ Rad has currently solo'd to 31st. She avoids the majority of mez at this level by using two powers Cosmic Burst and Air Superiority. Knock of AS plus the stun of CB makes solo work at that level relatively calm so far. Add in a bit of kb protection for yourself plus Auras when up and things are good.

Yes the Trinity existed. Still exists. Needed or most effective or efficient perhaps when Tankers could herd entire maps to a dumpster to nuke to oblivion with 6-slotted damage vs at max +3 mobs but given the speed 8 Fire/Rads or Fire/Kins sporting a dozen Imps a each might move through those mobs ... maybe the Tanker would actually be slower to arrive at the dumpster than all those crazed Controllers annihilated the last spawn. We'll never likely know and it certainly isn't true today. It's a very different game from back then.

This^ Is a good point. My main Controllers on HC are Plant/Cold, Ill/Traps and Earth/Storm and the extra damage for a single-target immobilize is dubious for the most part

Pretty much agree with all the above. I'd take the single target immobilize for early game if at all. Usually I'll just use the AoE for AVs while teaming. If I planned to take AVs solo I'd lean more towards the single target being included.

One of the primary ways my main got tricked out on Live (pre i21, since life, then computer issues knocked me out by then) is something no one has mentioned yet. I got her Glad proc, Shield Walls and other 'pricey' IOs for Hero Merits by running tip missions. It would actually take longer on HC than on Live where you completed 11tips (10 then the alignment) you ended up with 1 hero merit. Here you get 40 merits (instead of the 50 required for a hero merit) if I'm recalling everything correctly (both then and now). But it was definitely a way my minor league marketeer self made a buck to start acquiring pricey stuff on Live as well. Using hero merits i could solo and pretty much get anything I wanted. I purchased many LotG specials, at first using them then selling them on the market for fun and profit.

Not sure when you think this sort of game was ever required but it was long gone by late issue 3 and I doubt it ever was required. By early issue 4 of my 6 or so characters one was a Defender - Empathy/Dark Blast (Dark Lightning) and another was Cometfall, an Earth/Empathy - Controller. Neither fit the description of 'Healer' though both were capable enough using the healing powers neither relied on them. Right out the door she used and slotted her blasts and he definitely learned the power and utility of his CC powers. Within a short time I joined the Repeat Offenders SG and among their SGs was one of the original RO SGs an all Defender Empathy group ... nothing and I mean nothing slowed them down, most foes were basically speed bumps. Ever use a Nuke back then and have all your toggles drop with all your end vanish. More than once I let loose with Atomic Blast looked down at my power trays to see what needed toggling back on only to see an endurance bar at 3/4 full climbing rapidly with all my toggles still running (Tactics and Assault required plus other optional powers). This was long before IOs and before even CoV existed. If anything was required it was well, nothing, after about the 4th Empath, was needed or required. Helped perhaps, but needed not a chance. You could have dropped a dozen mobs on a team of 8 and a few seconds later and all you did was increase the xp rate. Ever try to kill something at or above the defense soft cap that was also at the regeneration hard cap along with healing of HA/HO plus silly amounts of recharge and mez protection? I'll be moving along now.

Another thought beyond options are usually a good thing ... I'm on my Emp/Rad running with a team in the Hollows (so lowbies) and I was exemped. Well the Tanker was still lower than much of the party. The animation was my first clue he didn't yet have his PB yet (or gaps in the click protection existed after a few levels). Now obviously the foes don't, far as I know, use procs but various animations are a visual clue for your teammates that a buff or debuff is effecting a potential target which can effect a decision to use or not use one of yours. Not as important solo but clearly a lack of visual indicator can lead to a delay or lack of a buff being used.

Probably most of the time ... until Hardmode vs some foes or when a Paragon Protector hits MoG or Elude or Cimerorans start stacking defenses or, or. Personally when it comes to hitting stuff I'd like to smack stuff with overkill. Ya know so I can still hit the PP in MoG while debuffed by a swarm of CoT Spectrals kind of overkill. But as Nemu points out adding a few extra procs in the build might be good too while keeping the damage up.

Oh I so feel that! They hadn't a prayer. The real question was could I score no escapes 😁

Another large factor in the Sonic Assault (or any strong resistance debuffs) set is procs and resistance debuffs are the only was to further increase damage output past the damage caps of the ATs

Probably one of my favorite set pairings and probably top 3 if not favorite Controller pairing. Give 'em hell.

Yes 😜

I'm in the the need for the Holy Trinity never existed in this game. I give you Green Machine as but one example. A full team of SO only builds of Empaths could have existed from near as I know from day one even if Green Machine didn't itself exist for a number of issues. And they could and did devastate any foes in their path. The RO Network's all Defender (and Controller) SG teams existed in part as examples of non-trinity teams many issues before IOs even were a thing. They all pretty much could curb stomp any foes they faced.

There's also going not too far back large difference in how readily (especially pre IO now thinking on it) our foes can strip defense from characters. Only SR possessed a significant ability to not get debuffed (i.e. DDR) by the multitude of commonly encountered defense debuffs available to our foes. Cascade defense failure is thing even now. But resistance always resists further lower by it's original value. A Tanker sitting at 90% resists to start will be 90% resistant to every incoming resistance debuff to matter how many or how often those debuffs come. Making a cascade failure of resistance essentially impossible. Resistance debuffing foes were until recently also far less common (and probably still are).

I'll let others comment on the power questions as my experience with both Gravity and Time is virtually non existent. Overpower is a 20% chance to add 1 mag to a power. Essentially giving you a chance to one shot chance to hold a boss for example (going from a typical 3 to 4 magnitude).

Just going to point out "just 5%" could be a large difference in overall mitigation because of the way defense works. Going from 45% to 40% will, for example, double incoming damage. Running on a small team at +0 vs similarly small mobs it's probably not nearly so impactful as vs +4/×8's would be admittedly even though incoming damage would be doubled.

Gale- useful pretty much as you describe. Particularly in the early game as Storm Summoning is in general a late bloomer though recent changes to when you get your powers makes this less true. Its soft control early before Storm gets its later offensive powers can be very useful. O2 Boost- I like it and would rarely skip it even at for a higher level character. Especially useful vs Endurance Drainers it self stacks. It also helps boost the targets Perception (cause everyone loves being Blinded right). Again self stacking. On top of the other benefits. All of which are self stacking. Still I wouldn't call it mandatory by any means just more useful than often thought to be. Snow Storm- Another useful but not mandatory power. Greater utility in the early game and somewhat dependent on what it's paired with particularly outside of the Corruptor AT. Ice/Storm for example has a ton of slow and recharge debuff built in leaving only the minus Fly. Steamy Mist- Among the powers I would never skip. I am almost always looking to 6 slot and get into the DR for its buffs. Whether I use special IO's depends a fair bit on what other choices I might be making that effect options for placement of those IOs. Freezing Rain- Another I would never recommend skipping. I rarely use procs there as they would likely fire poorly at best. It's an AoE and I am going to push the recharge with my slotting almost always to minimize the cooldown on the power. I might if I have slots to spare (an exceedingly rare thing) drop and Achilles resist debuff in there. Hurricane- So far I usually taking it but use it very situationally. It's a much a mule and used infrequently as I'm not particularly skilled with it. I'm also usually on a Controller with my Stormies so have lots of other options. More comments in my other post. Thunderclap- much more skippable on a Corruptor. Again I'm usually on a Controller often an Earth/Storm and I'll stack TC with Stalagmites topping it off with Fissure. Throw in containment and the whole mob is often immobilize and stunned. But keep in mind your primary. Dark Blast has the often maligned Dark Pit. That's a pair of mag 2 stuns at your disposal which when stacked is a stunned Boss. On teams that's probably slow and not worth it, but solo or a duo (small teams) could be strong overall mitigation. The big Guns- never skips without really good reasons in my book. And on a Corruptor with no AoE -kb yes to slotting a kb to kd proc and any AT will benefit from the FF proc. One cautionary note on Tornado. You'll find an Immobilize of almost any sort useful when fighting AVs while using Tornado. I've seen it turn Recluse in the old Statesman's TF turn into healthy competition for Romulus running all over the map. It's a mag 10 afraid that does self stack. Edit: @ExeErdnaYeah I would totally agree. Teams in general dispatch even +4 foes quite rapidly in the endgame. Even a skilled user is going to have trouble even remotely clumping all the foes up before they are long dead. Basically especially for higher level teams it power is overall greatly diminished by the combo of kill speed and defense of high level teams in particularly.

I think Hurricane suffers and opinions are so mixed for two reasons. First as pointed out above it does have steep learning curve to use without messing with melee combat or causing foe scatter. But I've also seen skilled users keep a whole spawn debuffed and whiffing clumped along a wall (not in a corner or deadend) without disrupting melee. Which brings us to the second issue. In a world of high defense if not capped the value of that applied debuff loses a whole lot of its impact especially in light of the above (required skill). Back in the day when for even many melee sets reaching high defense was unusual a skilled use of Hurricane was a game changer. Now that debuff is all too often utter overkill on teams given the downside. Something it shares with powers like Empathy's Recovery Aura replaced by special IOs and set bonuses.

I like Fold Space but that may be the early influence when the Rad/Fire team started using it. Yoink and everything was yanked into Choking Cloud(s), frequently accompanying Rain of Fire(s), Fireball(s), Inferno(s), with EF and RI debuffs in place.

And so was born the Pecking_Flea mutant chicken superhero!

While I try not to engage in thread necromancy (because it seems to draw such negative feedback) I must admit I'm totally clueless why it's an online social no no. Makes no sense to me at all to start a new thread/post on the same exact subject especially when the thread (in this case) itself so clearly marks the guilty post as "3 years later". At what point does it stray from merely a slow or late response into 'foul necromancy' territory. A week, a month, 6 months, other? Either the topic interests you or you skip the thread regardless I'd think.

I never built a character with trying to max range out as an overall build strategy but my Emp/Dark back in the day (pre-IOs) would sit up on the ledge of the War Wall in Crey's Folly and snipe Freaks with Moonbeam that occasionally I'd only know she hit by seeing the "you have defeated" pop up in her chat window along with the xp as they ran in panic from the first shot right out of sight.

Still does indeed. It's (He's) one major reason my characters almost always take an immobilize if possible. AVs have no special protection as a whole against immobilize (or Sleep). And those maps in Cimerora in particular have lots of running room which not only cuts into the teams dps but risks dragging all sorts of adds into the scrum.