Doomguide2005

Love the name 😎

Illusion is a very potent set indeed but a full team of Ill/Rads won't begin to match a full team of Fire/Rads. PA isn't going to put out the damage of 24 damage capped Flaming Monkies of Death as you can't buff them on top of the damage from Hot Feet (and Bonfire these days) of the Fire Controllers. All that stacked AM is largely wasted on Illusion and PA. So yes a small team or solo Ill/Rad will likely do more than a solo (duo, trio) of FRads. But as the team size climbs the FRads are going to catch and surpass Ill/Rads.

Yes it takes damage enhancements. I'd probably slot 4 Expedient Reinforcements and a kb to kd proc +/- an Achilles proc --> so 6 slots. There was a time when I liked 3 defdebuff/recharge and 3 Soulbound but that was pre kb to kd specials. Goal was to get out as many as 3 Tornadoes at a time. It autohits and also causes Afraid (mag 10) and will cause some AVs to turn into runners but generally isn't a huge problem in this respect.

Depends a bit on what you're looking to do. If it's mostly normal content, TFs etc. then both the +3% def special act like set bonuses meaning even if in a power that's not currently active due to exemplar they'll still function as long as your current level is within 3 levels of the IO. Under those conditions I'd be fine moving Tough later. If more interested in doing Hard Mode or small team at +4/×8 then the importance of having Tough running is of greater concern at that point. The more teammates the less personal defense and resistance matters overall as long as you don't find yourself taking the alpha regularly. Ice Blast does a good job slowing the movement and recharge of foes as well which helps mitigate incoming damage

I'd move Lingering Radiation up in the build. It's your -regen for hard targets (AVs, GMs, EBs). Lingering Radiation I'd be looking at having sufficient global accuracy so as to focus on Endred, Recharge, and Slow in the power, no accuracy needed. Boost to +5, 2 slots. Stop at 4 Dark Watchers in RI or use Enzymes (×2 or ×3) to save a slots. KB protection missing (or i missed it)? Fly can take kb prot and Winter's Gift special. I'd probably trim Radiant Aura to 3 slots. The 4th isn't worth the set bonus. OR try to find 6 slots (2 more) for the +def (range). Just FYI only have phone for internet, dead computer. So can't see your build in Mids to see things like what your range defense is currently or end consumption/net recovery. Hover would be good earlier. Can take LotG 7.5% and Kismet +6% (as well as kb prot, stealth IO, other good specials potentially). I'd swap it with Fly and use Jet packs but that's a more personal preference. I'd probably trim Tough to 4 slots (maybe 3). Same for Dark Embrace. Use Steadfast in one, Glad Armor in the other. Brain turning to mush. Back later.

Unfortunately I only have internet access via this phone which limits what I can see. I will point out you gain benefit of the Rectified Reticle perception proc if exemplared below where you gain Tactics. Tactics will obliterate any worries about seeing stealthed foes or being Blinded in PvE. Otherwise looks solid especially for teaming. I exemplar frequently and would probably change the order up somewhat on my power choices. Hasten and Tactics, in particular, I'd personally want sooner in the build but that's more a personal preference.

Why am I suddenly seeing Cyclops 🙄🤪

Indeed! Though I'm guessing unless it's an EB or higher they won't last long enough to truly matter. Toggles are really for the up rank foes. The rest are barbecuing Imp bait courtesy of Hot Feet and Chocking Cloud (and 24 crazed Imps).

And FS is the main reason by far to get in close. And that buff while 'short' is still 45 seconds plenty of time to position yourself for the cones. Not hard on a Kin to get the recharge low enough to start stacking FS.

Solo or teaming? Solo well Cold, Dark, Traps are familiar. Been there done that. I'd try Nature, EAff, Thermal, Time and TA. They're either new to me or highly changed since I last played (TA). Traps I've run as my choice in a hardcore SG (didn't make 50, died at 20th when I over-aggro'd). Teamed would be Empathy, Pain, Sonic, RadEm, Storm. I generally prefer Storm, RadEm, Kinetics, and Force Field as a secondaries. Which leaves Poison as last choice and pretty much only a tendency to try everything making it a choice. I've done a lot of Empathy and would give it a go solo just to see but that wouldn't be first choice in general ... more a challenge mode option.

I don't really emotionally understand this question. Intellectually perhaps I do but from my point of view the entire game is there to do at 50. Ouro isn't the only way to do lower story arcs. Exemplar is a thing. And there's level 50 stuff as well. If I enjoy my character level really doesn't matter ultimately.

I spend a lot of time on these forums owing a great deal of that to a dead computer and my only internet being this phone. I recall exactly one post where a +4 HM ITF was run with single digit deaths and that involved 7 Defenders and 1 Tanker. Most of the time the reports are of safely double digit deaths. So either Barrier isn't having nearly the overwhelming effect on things the OP seems to think it is or most of the population really needs to learn how to play. Give you a one guess as to what I think the answer is.

The primary reason to not enhance KB in Hurricane is the power has a low chance of actually doing KB (5% per target per pulse I believe). Because of the low chance it's also very random. Hurricane primarily does Repel, plus a Range and To Hit debuff. Tornado is an auto-hitting DoT with KU and KB, stun and defdebuff effects. It also has mag 10 Afraid.

I'd use a different word rather than skippable. Mule 🙄 That tends to be where I go with things like Sleep or Confuse powers that I don't really intend to use or are very niche. Some of the set bonuses are very nice in the Confuse sets.

I think the only way that might be possible is via procs in Dark Watcher's Despair and Pacing of the Turtle (other?) which do recharge debuffs. I wouldn't bother though probably, a Cold/Ice is already doing enough between base recharge debuffs and Avoid effects to essentially bring attacks to a crawl. You're better off doing something else with the slot.

How do you mean? A Cold/Ice very naturally does a lot of slow and recharge debuffs. I wouldn't, for example, slot up with Hold duration (sets) but I might experiment with Hold procs like Lockdown if looking to extend hold durations. I'm going to do damage first and foremost. So Ice Mistral's where possible, for instance, as it has damage and slow enhancement and higher recharge build to stack mag on targets by cycling hold capable attacks faster.

So I'm not a MM player but what factor do you all think is the greatest issue. Pets durability or mitigation -> they're just one shot by everything, Or they can't hit anything because the targets are effectively +5 and up in level Or they can't do any damage because, again, they're simply too under-level and the Purple Patch destroys any punch they may have Or basically all the above (which is all fundamentally a PurplePatch issue)? Because this sounds like an issue, too much 'smoke' for it simply to be, for the lack of a better term, whiney players as a MM outsider looking at this and other similar threads. There's a fire generating all that smoke.

Yep, time for a target bind to rapidly locate Cysts again. Had one on Live just for this for when Cysts were still blooming into lethal amounts of nictus but this seems to call for similar action.

Similar to Psyonico and Bionic Flea I've spent a lot of time solo on Defenders. Don't think I've ever gone creation to 50+ on any but some have gained a lot of levels while running solo. Never run a Force Field as a primary but a couple of Empathy builds did spend many levels running solo between teaming for Task Forces and missions as well as more offensive/debuffing sets like Storm and Dark Miasma.

Interesting. I suppose it could be argued their health bars are the visual warning (if enabled). Good communication here between teammates would be key. At least one player should know the Cyst is shy on health (whoever is beating on it) and needs to communicate this teamwide.

Yes @Hedgefund3posted a link above. And yes I have/had multiple builds on my Claws/SR. The primary build focused on mitigation and survival (+max health, high passive regen), a second focused on high recharge (Hasten, Red Fortunes etc) and a 3rd with Flight/Fly designed more for buzzing around the Shadow Shards in particular. I also had two very different builds on one of my Emp/Sonics. The first was a GM compliant build for teaming, standard play. The second was a design in progress for taking on a lvl 54 3 boss spawn of Rikti in the RWZ (the RWZ challenge). She could defeat such a spawn of lvl 53's, but the 54's were a draw. They couldn't kill her and she would get mezzed just enough to keep her from killing them. The build was pre-Incarnate and other issue changes, created around i13 or so. I've no doubt these days with crashless nukes etc., she'd own them (doubly so after this last update to Sonic Assault).

How do 'tics' of damage record (been long enough i don't recall)? Did the initial tic have a to hit roll ... then 1 or more 'autohits' or other?

DDR is extremely valuable to characters with large amounts of defense, particularly against higher level foes with defense debuffs. Outside of a couple armor sets (Shield, SR) no sets wouldn't greatly benefit from higher DDR. If your Invuln can aggro a swarm of +4 Cimerorans then just stand there for 10 minutes (or even several minutes) reading the newspaper and survive then you have 'enough' DDR (or something anyway 🤪).

Not run yet but yeah hard mode adds not insignificant amounts of to hit potentially on top of Incarnate to hit base (No idea if the ITF cysts are Incarnate or not). As in your softcap value is pushed into the 75% region not 45% at 4-star before any additional incarnate bonus is applied. Add in a touch of Nova boss/EB blasts which carry -defense and yeah it could get really painful really fast no auto-hit required to appear so. And Bio Armor, afaik, carries minimal if any DDR. Those Nova blasts you could be taking while laying smack down on a Cyst are going to shred your base defense on a character with minimal or no DDR. Nevermind all those incoming Cimeroran sword attacks. That said I'm going to agree that some visual warning would be nice. Especially if my attention is elsewhere when the Cyst is about ready to pop (like healing/buffing teammates). Pretty easy in the light show to lose track of the Cyst's health while focused elsewhere.

The value in defense debuff resistance (DDR) is it lessens the amount of defense lost reducing the risk and or how rapidly you can enter a cascade failure where the foes will quickly reach a to hit of 95%. Resistance to damage resistance debuffs (RDR) is always against your full value. Push your RDR to 100% and you'll never have your damage resistance lowered as that cap is 100% while DDR caps at 95% and defense debuffs apply against the current value i.e. whatever is left after the previous defense debuffs are applied. The best mitigation is going to be a capped defense backed by capped DDR layered on top of capped damage resistance with capped RDR. Manage that and you will be truly Invulnerable (and the amount of healing/passive regeneration you'll need will be at minimum)