Doomguide2005

Quite true. But Chain will not only ignite Oil Slick (it's energy damage) but can also cause Storm Cell or Cat 5 to proc Lightning and of course Cat 5 is also throwing up DoT. And the discussion in any case is about what one is doing with Storm Blast, not which set pairing actually gets the biggest sea of numbers. I've no doubt Ice/TA would indeed put up a lot of orange as well.

I'm running a Storm/Trick Arrow and loving it. When I use Chain Lightning a top of Oil Slick Arrow I will say it leaves a veritable sea of orange numbers coming up when it scourges. Satisfying as heck to see on my computer screen no matter the actual values.

Lots of solid information. I'd add a few thoughts: The majority of foes have no +defense, especially older mob types. Some later and or upgraded mobs do or did get some defenses. Cimerorans being a fine example. Rikti Drones, PP and Vengeance using Nemesis being examples of early game mobs that do. It is vastly easier to gain +Accuracy (in large amounts) via set bonuses than To Hit. There are extremely few ways to gain To Hit via set bonuses. Kismet is the only way coming to mind via sets. To Hit is much more powerful than Accuracy in helping builds reach 95% final hit chance specially when fighting up level foes (i.e. +4 mobs). This is because of how readily the build costs associated with gaining To Hit vs Accuracy work combined with the math Rudra was detailing above.

Katana has Divine Avalanche as a power. It is a defensive power but I'd prioritize damage enhancement vs defense. Experience against a mob will give you knowledge of when to use and when not to but my personal default is initially when engaging a mob not to use. It is very sweet to use for the defensive boost (vs Melee , Lethal) but will cut into your damage output. Reserve for use when that boss starts cracking your skull a bit much. It self stacks and is not hard to boost defense by 30% with it.

Also be careful what you bind to p. Once long ago I rebound autorun from r to p. Rather embarrassing when asking in in chat to ask if we wanted to 'p'ull that Magma Lord and have my scrapper suddenly race off all Leroy Jenkins towards the Lord and his friends

Yeah seems to me that the only drawback to not self igniting it especially at endgame is the spawn being dead before you do in the seconds before a teammate does

I know pretty much nothing about the characters. I'm too old. But it sounds fun, maybe even as a themed sg. Very colorful with lots of customized powers.

I'm in the 'no thanks' camp as well. First is you've got combat logs and apps to pull and let you know much of what is being asked for. See @Carnifax's combat parser as an example. Then there's your Combat Attributes and ability to monitor them or your foes (via both in-game powers and temp powers). No idea if there's a useful app similar to Carni's avaliable to do so already. Lastly all the above and just paying attention I've usually got a pretty fair idea of how well I'm performing. Died three times the other night during a Tinpex run. Most of my characters that's a shrug, stuff happens. But this wasn't just any of my characters this was my main, my number One. She rarely dies, much less three times vs a single AV (Bobcat) in a single encounter. That got my attention and had me looking at things. Usually in those rare instances where she dies it is obvious operator error. This was less so and the errors combined with circumstances probably precipitated the event. Situations like that are about the only time I truly care how I performed. Then you have characters and team concepts built around powers such as Rise of the Phoenix, Soul Transfer and Fallout ... plus Vengeance and other things I'm probably forgetting as well. How does it account for those. Devlopers, imo, have many other things to worry about before this potentially toxic addition.

It's the primary way my Earth/Storm characters have and do neutralize foes. Stalagmites followed by Thunderclap sometimes a Fissure mixed in. All my other CC tools are used as needed to help control some of the problematic foes, such as War Wolves, particularly QS, EQ and Stone Cages (And/or adds etc.).

Combine a lack of damage immunities plus any true healing present to use on Phantasm then add in a dash of pet AI resulting in target focus issues as well as no taunt himself I can understand skipping especially if slotting gets tight. That's not to say he's terrible not by a long shot. The duplicate he creates is does have immunities and draws aggro/taunts therefore adds to damage output and helps keep stuff off you and cover any gaps left by PA.

As an added thought the new Storm Blast set can also ignite OS both directly with a couple powers and the lightning that procs as a result of Storm Cell. And I'm enjoying the heck out of a Storm Blast/Trick Arrow character. Chain Lightning on OS plus Scourge gives you an absolute sea of orange numbers to gratify your need for such.

Recharge for at least two Spirit Trees i imagine which at 400+ is in Regen Aura territory.

About 90% of the speed of light?

Wonder to if it's a targeting activation thing similar to the "guided" missiles that following targets around or through a corner to hit.

Just dropping in again to point out that Atomic Blast, the nuke, in addition to a huge defdebuff is also a mag 3 Hold to stack on foes (with CC). Particularly relevant for Bosses on up that are more likely to survive the initial team Alpha strike. There's also Incarnate abilities that can proc +1 mag iirc. My thinking would be cast Radiation Infection while moving in likely by jumping in to avoid rooting. Use Irradiate while Choking Cloud takes effect. If Atomic Blast is ready use it. If not Cosmic Burst on the most dangerous foe and/or Neutron Bomb the spawn. Then ready to move on to the next. EB's on up I'm going to use Enervating Field prior to Cosmic Burst. I'm also rather fond of using Air Superiority (AS) to help with troublesome bosses. Use AS then CB, rinse repeat till defeated. AS has a very reliable knock effect puts most on their backside while you stack CB stuns till they're stunned or defeated. My Emp/Rad/Dark used this waaay back on Live to solo Cimeroran repeatables on the then highest difficulty of Invincible. She could handle 2 of them this way keeping one stunned until defeated while keeping the second permanently knocked until the first dropped. The Auras kept her upright until they were controlled and any Minions and Lts were also eliminated.

^This. Or get a Hold in your Epics (my Rad/Fire took Char for example) or obviously a teammate with a Hold to stack with will speed the process. Mine also placed a Lockdown proc in the power which can help achieve fast results.

It's really dependent on which character but I rather dislike dying with a full tray or because I've messed up, all too often on a support character who forgot to create a breakfree. For my main (Claws/SR/Body) I almost never craft purple, blues or green anymore outside of incarnate level content and foes. While she most definitely favors yellow or red. Interestingly i am most likely to want the yellows at the extremes either low level exemplar (Posi 1 at the door of City Hall. Hello Spectral Demons) or during an ITF (when the Cimerorans clump up heavily and I start seeing more "deflected" than orange numbers floating off them with Spin or Shockwave). Most of the rest of my characters are support, at least among the level 30+ crowd and so are much more work in progress yet and use them either preemptively or mid fight.

You didn't add cold, (un)hands for shame.

Mine is routinely set to accept. Two main reasons. First if you are a person who likes to grief folks by teleporting them off buildings etc. then I'll know that as soon as it happens. For the record I've had that happen once since i3 so it's not common enough to even worry about. Second I ran with several RO sg's where it's pretty much required (Faithful Fans of Fallout in particular). Hard to rapidly reposition a corpse for Fallout if it is not enabled. Both of those basically amount to if someone wants to port me they probably have a valid enough reason that taking the time in a pop-up is for me just wasted clicks (until they prove otherwise).

Good question. I don't have the experience to answer either. You are pretty much limiting your epic to Primal Forces Mastery though as it's the only Controller epic with a power boost type power. Probably comes down to how much less your max heals are. At 4☆ some of the often unresistable damage is pretty insane.

The truest answer is probably sometimes. It is a somewhat misleading answer however. I think I tend to use the second or third builds more often than many and on a solo or small team I'm far more likely to build not just with the fighting pool but for defenses/mitigation outside of CC. Set bonuses will lean towards favoring Thunderstrike vs Decimation vs Purple for recharge and conversely the more large team oriented the less important that becomes to my build goal where recharge is king.

Well done. I enjoyed seeing the outcome of the lively chat in channel leading up to this effort. I really need to put more effort into getting my Empath fully incarnated and IO'd plus dip my toes more in HM (and get back to knowing and using binds).

Totally understand that sentiment.

Unless I'm misunderstanding the question(s) Player-1, the Developer, answers at least part of your post. Also CoD lists it as stacking both from the caster as well as in general near as I can tell.

Less common (as in I've yet to run into another one .. on Excelsior) Plant/Cold