Doomguide2005

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.

Empathy Absorb Pain - I'd be okay with tweaking to include an Absorb. I'd probably still skip it though as long as the self debuffs existed outside of maybe Hard Mode my playstyle plus usually a couple of powers (including HA) all but require me to be in melee range. It's just too lethal, I need to be upright to heal and buff the next ally. And it's too rare in the overwhelming majority cases to need a heal of that size. All I'll typically do is leave them with larger green bar but green either way when keeping an ally standing after a heavy hit or three. And that is sufficient to allow me to stack on more heals or the character to use inspires etc.. Clear Mind - Never really had an issue with getting a team covered by Clear Mind specifically when needed which is rare these days outside of very low levels when even some melee armors can lack coverage. Though the sheer quantity of single target buffs that a team might benefit from can keep one very busy using only Empathy without using the other paired set, pool or epic powers. I wouldn't complain but really see no need to buff CM. The Auras - really don't see the need to change or buff either of them. Changing just the recharge times is a recipe for perma Auras which is just a wee bit overpowered applied across a team 24-7. Chronoshift is strong but it is nowhere near as strong as the Auras combined for providing end recovery and health regen to a team. Adrenaline Boost - is quite arguably one of the strongest single target buffs out there. And it is already possible to make it perma on one ally even without an especially high recharge build. This was at the core of how Green Machine was/is so potent on SOs alone. Really can't justify this change.

Nevermind the ranged AoE, slow and recharge debuff along with some minor damage and famously rezzed all whole lot of heroes after a Hami Bloom by targeting an Oil Slick Arrow, bringing, as I recall, a silently observing Dev out of their hidden silence to effectively say "You did what? WTF?"

Just reached 50 with my Empathy/Rad/Dark and she ran a lot solo interspersed with TF (Through Yin wrt to TFC). No mez protection outside of breakfree. And mostly at lower end difficulty with slightly upped team size once i picked up Cosmic Burst. The only time mez really started to get annoying wasn't until 40ish or so when Malta and DE foes got annoying mostly because of the duration meant getting trapped in perma mezzed state. At lower levels it was mostly 'sigh' and wait out any mez that did happen as usually it was generally short(er) duration with breakfree used when health started to become overwhelmed. The only significant qualifiers is she was gaining full sets (rather than SOs, generic IOs and a few specials such as Miracle for end support) for her powers asap which meant higher recharge and more than a couple "useless" mez resistance bonuses along the way compared to how most of mine level to 50.