Doomguide2005

Or heaven forbid Rikti of Unusual Size

My Empaths start giggling. A single pair of Empaths would be sitting at the softcap on SO's (at level 13). Start involving IO's and or more than just self buffing beyond Fortitude and it starts to get silly fast especially for small teams of defenders Small teams would see the greatest change in the relative strength of buffing sets. Then again 7 Defenders vs 8 is virtually no effective change ... they're silly powerful either way.

This^ While my norm on all my other characters is pretty much the 3 slots or less as is common in this thread (with just the base slot in both Health and Stamina in my Empaths) my Claws/SR has 6 in both Health and Body Mastery and 4 in Stamina primarily for the +max health as well as the +regeneration. She also has just shy of 2100 hit points and passive regeneration of ~32 hp/sec further backed by t4 Rebirth which will see her at the hp cap for scrappers for quite a space of time.

This^ By the time you've gotten enough defdebuff stacked to even remotely initiate something resembling defense failure much less cascade failure you are probably already a greasy spot on the floor.

The defense debuff should be heavily resisted (i.e. DDR) by level 34 making that almost a non-issue unless her debuff is absolutely huge (or one or more powers have been delayed). Caltrops in general are auto hit but against SRs Quickness (40% move resist) a single patch of caltrops shouldn't do much but a low constant DoT. @Blackjoyhinted at the likely issue if Siver Mantis uses/used Toxic damage SR's scaling passive resists do not effect the amount done (resist = 0%). So if she manages to land a strong Toxic attack you'll eat the full damage regardless of your health.

1) True you are less likely to find characters with capped resistances than defenses in end game (outside melee/armor ATs) especially across multiple types. Though I also think you're more likely to run into resistance buff support characters these days as well than previously. 2) resistance debuffs are resisted by the targets resistances to the damage type. Between this and the Purple Patch a high level AV will end up potentially resisting a whole lot of a resistance debuff (but that's true of debuffs in general). The positive side is from the teaming pov that debuff applies for everyone attacking that target -> allies, pets, lore pets etc.

Yeah it's interesting to see a very different take on Tornado as the circumstances in which my Storm/Storm (and other Storm Defender or Corruptor pairings) pulls out Tornado is precisely when I'm facing nasty looking mobs and suspect I will draw lots of aggro or already have. This is especially true while leveling.

Or via Ouroboros portal and probably a few other alternatives as well.

Most commonly by far I use Membranes in Fortitude. Unless something in sets has changed while I wasn't looking getting both To Hit and Defense in one IO set doesn't happen. Add in recharge as an extra bonus. Set IOs won't touch the slot efficiency in 2 Membranes and 1 LotG global which is typically how I go. Frakkenslotting might get close in 4 but ...

Excellent summation by @biostem. For me the biggest standout differences going from an Empath to Pain Dom character would be the presence of Anguishing Cry and its PBAoE debuff of both resistance and defense. It's a nasty debuff in and of itself exceeding the values of RadEm's toggle debuffs (for resistance and defense) but in a click and forget for 30 sec format Adrenaline Boost's massive recharge buff (100%) and slow/recharge debuff resistance values The total Regeneration buff on a target of both RegenAura and AB (which would be pushing the regeneration cap for most support characters once you include their base passive regeneration 1600%+). Killing something at both the defense soft cap and 1600+% regen is pretty problematic. And lastly I'd personally notice the lack of a defense buff along the lines of Fortitude. Which as biostem alludes to I'd countered by greater overall damage buffs available to a Pain Domination.

Well I think this thread is evidence of how unusual my controller is in game. She is a Plant/Cold a pairing I rarely hear about or see. Lots of fun playing to 50 and beyond.

While I'd hesitate to call it vital, after all Earth suffers a richness of control options I will say I've never skipped it either. I also always use it as a one slot wonder typically dropping a range IO into that base slot. It's crazy solo and or at low levels how often the smidge more range is the difference between firing while open to return fire and remaining tucked around the corner immune to a return alpha. Slow is also often a very effective soft control vs mobs that are or can use protection vs hard controls (Hold, Stun, Immob etc.) such as Cimerorans (and also incidentally helps counter their defense self buffing)

@Bananiac Love to hear about your experience with your Earth/RadEm Controller. How did Fold Space work out for you? Wondered how much the whole theme team i was running with helped with expectations on it getting used vs a PuG teams tendency to immediately zerg towards the next mob. I found myself using it earlier when on a PuG to preempt movement away by my teamments towards the next target.

Just FYI down the page a ways is a thread "Next project - Earth Rad Build Review" I'd recommend reading.

This. The basic positional toggles are almost certainly not the issue. Using a single attack once will cost you more endurance than running all 3 toggles over the same period ... with endurance enough to run another toggle in all likelihood. For example, Rending Fury - a single attack every 14 secs will burn 13.52 end. Over the same period the 3 toggles are (3× 0.260 × 14 = 10.92 end). Hasten plus recharge enhancement to Rending Fury (global or the power itself) will only make this disparity greater if used as soon as cooldown is up. At 100% recharge (Hasten plus a single recharge SO and you're over 100%) you've effectively doubled that cost from 13.52 end to 27.04 end in 14 seconds. The toggles meanwhile are the same cost regardless of recharge. Does this mean no endred is necessary in toggles, of course not. But it does mean ensure you've got solid endred in the attacks and elsewhere first. Grab +end accolades asap. Various temp buffs from base empowerment, day job, p2w etc. are available. Be wary of how much endred any sets you are using provide. Obliteration is sweet set. It's endred value sucks. Pace yourself, nothing wrong with using Rest. Make sure you've got enough accuracy to land those attacks ... whiffing with Rending Fury is expensive right. Dropping a Kismet somewhere in the build maybe very helpful if you observe to hit rolls of 90+ missing rather than 95+ No access to opening Mids to check the build so maybe you already have one or enough accuracy and to hit to reach 95+ Hope this helps. PS: Hasten also has a crash. No cost up front when clicked it the proceeds to help burn through your endurance via faster attacking then as you've burned that candle hard for 120 seconds it crashes dropping your end 15 further points ...

That's how I recall it (Jet Stream).

As @Captain Fabulousstated no you don't need any in either power. I'll preface the next statement by saying it's been a bit so it's not as fresh in my mind but some of your powers will in fact be turned from kb to kd when use on a target in Storm Cell. Hopefully someone will correct me and or add to that statement as needed.

Accuracy is multiplicative and occurs after all defense and to hit, buffs and debuffs occur and that result of that portion of the equation is "clamped" to always be between 5% and 95%. All your accuracy enhancements (SO's and IO's, etc.) and accuracy buffs count towards your final hit chance. Most powers have a base accuracy of 1.00 but it does vary typically between 0.80 and 1.20. All your accuracy is multiplied together then that value is multiplied by the result of the To Hit/Defense portion of the equation then clamped between 5 and 95 for your final hit chance. Exceptions and other complications are well covered in the wiki article linked above by @Steel

Never met my brother have you.

I think there's a lot of truth in this statement. For most I think WP is a much smoother leveling curve whereas SR is more a late bloomer. Another thing to consider is running as a Tanker. The term late bloomer starts to lose some meaning when you can get all your positions covered by level 20 or so (all toggles and passives chosen and slotted). Add in a dose of the Tanker buffs to AoEs and you'll be pretty respectable for offensive output as well. Not Scrapper or Brute levels of damage but more than enough to handle 99.99% of this game. The only drawback really might come with teaming as right or wrong many will kind of assume you'll 'tank'. Then again tanking these days mostly seems to consist of absorbing the alpha. Divine Avalanche - in a mature build I'd be mostly using this towards slowing cascade defense failure (or other ugly debuffing situations). Give myself time to withdraw long enough for the debuffs to fall off. SR in general - I see a lot of comments like Blackjoys with respect to endurance usage. I've personally never found SR any more difficult the most armors in terms of usage and the end cost of running the toggles is overall not significantly more than other sets. But maybe it's just a good fit to my playstyle but ... *shrug*. I do know my endgame build (Claws/SR/Body) runs the 3 toggles, Tough, Weave, Maneuvers, Tactics and Sprint (plus the essentially free Combat Jumping) non-stop and rarely bothers with Conserve Power or inspires beyond topping off the blue bar to free up inspire space.

On my Claws/SR with numerous places available for the LotG 7.5 rchg I actually ended up placing it in Vengeance and it definitely fires off there.

Just going to point out you can build now to double stack PB (or be exceedingly close), no buff necessary. Recharge base 200, duration 120 or about perma Hasten levels of recharge to overlap fulltime. I think the only time I ever think about wanting it is vs Rommie and his rez and a lot of the time I either have a breakfree (deliberately created or retained) or there's folks using any of numerous buffs that eliminate mez/stun. It's not done (far as I know) for lack of need and not wishing to devote multiple slots to PB by most. I'm much like @Rigged in that these days about the only time I'm careful about keeping PB up is vs heavy mez users as most of any knock is covered by incidental IO protection plus they have to hit first. When it gets through I click. I can go through entire +4/×8 ITFs and rarely end up using it. And again I wouldn't object to buffs here like an absorb or resistance to psi/tox I'm just of the opinion SR doesn't really need help.

If you are prone to Altitis and you don't care speeding to 50 then I'd say try them both. If nothing else you'll find yourself drawn to one or the other or liking both. And welcome home!!

Hmmm, frankly outside of Elude being fairly superfluous, especially for a t9, I'm pretty happy with where SR is. Definitely don't see a need to buff it any. It's a very strong armor set. But discussion is never a bad idea. While SR doesn't offer quite the range of WP for mez protection the set itself is missing only Repel and Terrorize comparatively (with Placate and Taunt missing on both sets). And none of those are particularly common mezzes. Thousands of hours on SR I've been terrorized probably not even a dozen times. And I think the other day courtesy of upgrades? to family bosses several Singularities? were, for the first time ever, giving me a wild ride. It was actually quite amusing though ill grant only because it was a first. The 20th time probably not so much. Taunt also seems kind of silly to worry over. While more common by far than it used to be thanks to Crey upgrades half the time I'm focused on putting the hurt on my Taunter already. If not hello AoEs, ditto for Placate. Not sure if it's just a mistake but PB does nothing to or for DDR. It does stack the mez protection. Endurance usage. This seems to keep coming up as an "issue" for SR (particularly while leveling or non-IO builds). SR 3 toggles for 0.780 end/sec. WP 4 toggles for 0.832 end/sec. Invulnerability 3 toggles for 0.728. Energy Aura 4 toggles for 1.04 end/sec. Shield Defense 4 toggles for 0.780 end/sec. Etc., etc., if there's an endurance usage issue it's not from running the toggles. And I'm willing to bet endurance issues in a build lie in the attack/offensive side of the equation, not the defensive/armor set side of things regardless of which set you're talking about. While I wouldn't have issue with PB being perma out of the box I don't see it as needed particularly since it can be clicked while mezzed. I can run my toggles for a long time on the end otherwise used for PB against a foe that never hits me much less mezzes me😜 And like Akisan if it comes at the expense of stacking or other current capability no thanks. I'll take 60% resistance over capped at some smaller amount any day of the week. 60 is a whole lot closer to the 75% cap. I can reach the cap of 75% via set bonuses against at least one type of damage. Adding 35% is going to be a whole lot harder. At least that's my first instinct. Elude - can of worms. Haven't come up with anything I like while puzzling over the question myself. Did take it on my last respec on HC and have used it exactly once during an incarnate mission while solo. Mostly it sits there muling a LotG while I ponder its potential for use in Hardcore content.

Do it. Unless you find it totally unappealing the more raw data as well as anecdotal feedback is undoubtedly useful for the devs in deciding whether to tweak and if so how much might be needed going forward.