Doomguide2005

Absolutely, For helping a group of friends especially pre 40 (particularly much earlier) I think Earth/Empathy would work very well. I was asked once long ago (well before IOs came along) by a friend on his early teens Tanker for some healing/support assistance. Probably hoping for my Emp/Dark. But I was thinking what was happening was the team getting a bit too much aggro and trying to break and him being on a Tanker getting chased ... a lot and everyone getting shot to bits. So enter Quicksand. Lot easier to withdraw when the baddies are dealing with QS and made the Healing I did have at that level able to keep pace without running an end bar dry (no Vigilance, no Stamina etc. days).

Well "Ultimate" support toon is very much in the Eye of the Beholder ... quite literally. Are you 'eyeing' an SR Tanker whose 18th level or a Fire/Sonic Controller whose 33rd or an end game t4 incarnated /Fire Brute or Blaster. Are you supporting them specifically (filling gaps and weaknesses in their build) or supporting their killing efforts? Any Defender or Corruptor can get any of the pool and other non-primary/secondary powers you seek. So --> Thermal has heals, a rez, mez protection and resist shields plus some nasty debuffs. No regen, recharge or recovery buffs. --> Pain heal and DoT absorb, rez, mez protection, debuffs and regen and recovery buffs. No shields per se (but has a single target +dmg/+to hit buff) --> Aaaand 14 more sets What do you want to provide, what's the priorities involved? You mentioned friends, what are they playing? For pre endgame support of less than optimal builds it's hard to beat an Empath, their buffs are pretty much second to none. But Empaths have no debuffs, no ability in their set to effect the foes. Any of that has to come from the other half of the pairing which is why Thermal and Pain tend to be mentioned as alternates to Empaths. About the only thing an Empath can't buff is an allies damage resistance. Something like Dark Miasma is an entirely different sort of support. Their support is almost entirely directed at making the foes ineffectual. Don't need Shields when your foes have trouble hitting the Barn and when they do it's like a slap not a good roundhouse to the jaw. For example their Heal and their Rez Their AoE heal (Twilight's Grasp) debuffs their foes to hit, their damage and their regeneration. The Rez (Howling Twilight) is arguably one of the best powers in the game. It rezzes multiple allies while stunning, recharge debuffing, slowing and debuffing regeneration. It's been used infamously to "Stun" an observing Redname during a Hami Raid gone badly sideways when the HT targeted, iirc, the pseudo pet created by Tar Patch to rez a huge chunk of characters dead after a mito bloom. Food for thought ... so what sort of support did you have in mind?

I'll just note here that owing to a dead computer I can't open or use Mids. That caveat out of the way. You'll ideally want to move the Panacea proc out of Heal Other. It, as I recall, only works when the power is activated. It's best placed in an auto power, typically Health. Just move it and replace with the missing Panacea enhancement. You can likely just skip slotting the Regen Tissue proc. The slot (used for something and somewhere else) is more valuable than the proc to your survival (and massively so when Regeneration Aura is running). Like holding the Panacea proc. Any reason you used Doctored Wounds in RegenAura rather than Panacea? Likewise I'd aim to add LotG def/+rchg when ever I could. Could add one to Maneuvers. What's the down time on your Recovery Aura? Be sure not to include the FF proc in the calculations. That'll give you some very misleading information if included. I also like to keep the cooldown on my Auras within a few seconds of each other. One less thing to track. If ones ready they both are or is about to be. Position and fire them 1, 2 and done. I'd drop a kb protection IO in Super Speed (or Winter's Gift resist recharge debuff). Or ideally both. Stealth IO in one of your Sprints. SS plus Stealth IO is full Stealth from minions, lts, Bosses, EBs and AVs unless they are the sort to completely ignore stealth. Or these days not quite enough for many foes in higher challenge settings of the Aeon SF but you can get to just off their toes (65ft stealth vs 66ft perception) Move slots from CJ to Maneuvers. More defense and better end use for you and more defense for your allies. Unless I missed it you only have 1 of the 3% defense uniques. Find a spot for the other (Glad Armor) You're already invested in Kick and Tough so I'd be trying to fit in Weave (with 3 slots). That's all I've got for the moment. Hope it helps.

What @Hjarkisaid is what's most efficient, i.e chowing down reds to keep you at the cap. Kinetics would the biggest damage boost among the support sets as assuming an actual farming build it is likely self sufficient for defense, resistance and endurance. Damage is the only thing those builds can't self provide. But not every farmer is necessarily optimized however, even if just because it's the first on the account, not dedicated solely to farming or a "traditional" i27 Fire Brute build. In almost all those cases it'll be a Kin because of Fulcrum Shift for the huge damage boost to speed things along ... not Speed Boost, Siphon Power, Transfusion or Transference although all those may be helpful for any build that’s attempting to farm and is not a dedicated and optimized farmer.

So why change defense rather than resistance? Why in your thoughts is it better to try and enforce a defense of 40 (disregarding whether it's hard or soft for the moment) rather than make the resist cap 90% for all?

The hard cap (caps technically since it also varies by AT) exists. It might not be the value you wish it to be or think it should be but it does exist. Repeatedly claiming it doesn't weakens your credibility.

Yes it would create a buffer. The other important thing is the game apparently always checks your base resistance (i.e. the 85%). So it wouldn't check vs 85%, then against whatever would be left after you subtracted out the debuff from 85%, etc.. No cascade resistance failure.

See the HCwiki article on "Limits" the section about Debuff Resistances. It mentions how Damage Resistance resists both damage debuffs and resistance debuffs. Edit: There's another spot where it's mentioned but I haven't located it yet Edit2: It's in the Article titled Resistance (Mechanics) section about Resistance to Resistance Debuffs

It's more like if ddr went to 100% ... nothing would even scratch your defense not even the tiny 5% debuff maxed ddr let's in. If your energy damage resistance is say 100% or more via buffs and Melt Armor hit you for a -30% debuff ... 100% of that is resisted so Melt Armor would reduce your nrg damage resistance by 0.00% because its all resisted. And if you're a Scrapper your previous 75% capped energy resistance would remain at 75%. And that would be true even if 5 bosses in Relentless each hit you with a -30% resistance debuff within the same second. At least that's how I understood it in a recent thread. Edit: And @Parabolamakes an excellent point it has to be a resistable resistance debuff. Several of the attacks, in particular the Goldbrickers self destruct are unresistable. So no dropping a Thermal's shield on a capped Tanker and expecting to survive the 5 digit damage incoming.

@Gobbledegookone bit that I only became aware of recently favors Resist based mitigation. Namely damage Resistance is what resists Resistance debuffs (not new knowledge) but the Resistance caps are not the upper limit for resisting debuffs. A Scrapper with 100%+ damage resistance to Energy for example will still take 25% of incoming energy damage (capped at 75%) but when hit by multiple Melt Armors will be 100% immune to the debuffs. The Scrapper with, to pick a random number, 60% Energy Damage Resistance is going to get debuffed by those same Melt Armors and watch as his Relentless foes send his numbers rapidly downward. EDIT: In otherwords this whole topic is way too complex to make sweeping changes to defense without inviting complete disaster.

Yes you will not be Blinded while running Tactics (outside of maybe something created in AE that stacks silly amounts of perception debuffs). And yes I'd be real reluctant to not take Stalagmites. It's among the faster AoE stuns. Granted with no other stuns you'll only stun Bosses when 'Overpower' kicks in (20% chance) but all those minions and Lts are out of action. I'd also be looking to get Acid Arrow in relatively early. It does something relatively unique among debuff powers, it debuffs their resistance to being debuffed.

While replacing Clear Mind with Clarion is certainly an option I'd be wary if you plan on doing much content below 45. It would also depend a bit on your pool powers, specifically the presence or absence of Tactics. No Tactics or CM and Blind effects become a potential concern for the team. Combine these things with the fact CM is a 1-slot and done power and whatever takes its place needs to be well worth it (while exemping below 45th).

This is a game with petless MM builds, pool boy builds and the like. It also has multiple builds. If you want to try it out go for it. I would say it is a less than optimal choice but not that suboptimal. Note that while certainly ruins your Shadow Fall based stealth it does protect the user by generating a mag 3 Afraid ... a lot of the time will be spent slowly (real slowly if stacked atop Tar Patch) trying to run away from you. It will also reduce the damage to your aggro monkeys again because they're trying to flee. And Twilight's Grasp fires off around you so unless those Imps are flying too, healing them becomes more problematic.

Relentless is not going to be kind to anyone running with hard capped at 40 defenses which is what Brutal Justice is proposing. My response is solely directed at this idea. Currently a build regardless of its actual defense can get buffed to counter the buffs given to Relentless foes encouraging teaming and the value of support characters. Right now a casual player with teammates can get buffed a ton between Maneuvers, Barrier, Force Field, Cold, Fortitude, etc., etc.. and be successful because all those buffs can have an effect. Change that to a hard cap and well it's going to get a whole lot dicier regardless of how uber or casual the player/build is because 40 defense is a pretty low bar to achieve via ally buffs and largely not going to cut it vs a Relentless spawn and being a HARD cap can't be improved. To really deal with it you start needing to look at specific team makeups ... something I'd think is also not very casual friendly.

Not only is it optional but the big picture goal is not per se increasing the difficulty in and of itself but to do so in a manner which promotes both teaming and the roles played by support ATs.

Controllers and Empaths both love recharge. Healing Aura and Heal Other -> Preventative Medicine 6 slots in one and 5 slots either Doctored Wounds or Panacea in the other is generally my default. Absorb Pain -> I generally skip. Resurrect -> again I generally skip. If taken, especially on a Controller (no Vigilance discount) base slot only with Endred. Clear Mind -> base slot, slot pretty much anything. I often go 1 range to reach that one guy who's trying to solo another mob way over there. Fortitude -> huge variety of options for slotting and enhancement. I listed a whole bunch in a thread In the Defender forums that was basically about how to slot Fortitude. My favorite is 3 slots with 2 Membranes and 1 LotG def/increased global rchg. Max benefit for minimum slot investment. Recovery Aura -> generally either 2 or 3 slots with either 2 50+5 recharge or 1 rech + 2 Endmod/rech. Regeneration Aura -> 5 slots either Doctored Wounds or Panacea. Adrenaline Boost -> 5 slots either Doctored Wounds or Panacea. I'll leave the Grav side of things to someone with recent and more experience.

Pretty much all the Task Forces for Task Force Commander end squaring off against as AV. Numina's being the exception ending vs a Monster. Personally my Claws/SR went through a big chunk of Maria's arc.

Grrrroooooooaaaaaaan! 👏

You want to drop the defense hard cap for scrappers to 40% as I recall. If so that pretty much invalidates a the new challenge settings. A Scrapper with hard capped defense of 40 would almost certainly get rapidly and thoroughly obliterated on Relentless settings. Lots of rapid napkin math so if someone spots a mistake please say so. Inner clamp -> 80 - 40 = 40 Some of those foes have additional to hit bonuses as well. That 40 defense is fixed as it's the hard cap so you could put them on a team with a Cold, a Force Field and an Empath and their shield (+defense) buffs are largely useless. Yay big step forward there on promoting teaming and support roles. Outer clamp -> 40 × 1.4 × 1.3 (assuming boss) = 72.8 final hit chance. Have fun with those Melt Armor's splattering around you. Mind the Tanker and Brute have (err had) hard capped defenses only 5 points higher (i.e. they are getting hit well over half the time). It'll take slightly longer but 45 hard cap is also pretty much death as well for Tankers and Brutes. God help the support characters as they are going to get wiped even faster if attacked. Many of the AV are basically not going to miss as they have both +30 to base hit and its the Praetorian base of 59 (i.e. 96 - 40 = 56. 56×1.4×1.5 = waaay over the clamp of 95) Relentless is only reasonable when the hard caps allow for team/support buffs to actually contribute to raise defenses to help counter the base to hit boost the foes gain on the higher difficulties. Basically they need to be soft with respect to defense not hard. It's pretty clear to me, both the OG Live Devs and the HC team are looking at increasing the foes to hit (typically base to hit, but also via buffs) as the go to for countering player soft cap defense. They are very unlikely to directly nerf player defense though I wouldn't rule out a nasty potent defense debuff. Heck that's what Melt Armor is especially with the purple patch making it nastier yet.

Yes always has been always will be.

This and even if it's truly the best beast you could build for your goals and eyes the game isn't static. And along come new enhancements and various power and other changes. Now it needs a tweak or three to be The "perfect" build again. My main, a Claws/SR scrapper, has undergone a large number of respecs since her start in i3 and even more builds exist solely in Mids'. Currently she awaits my return post computer death and more rebuilding via Mids to account for several new uniques since her last build. Looking to see if or how close to the scrapper health/hit point max I can get an SR scrapper (last seen at just over 2100 health).

A +100% damage buff will tend to make the difference all other things not withstanding. -->Corruptor damage cap vs Defender. I'd bet both teams tend to cap damage at size 8. It would certainly take very little effort to do so. Repeat Offenders on Live once did an "Olympics" style event between their various Defender SG's running a series of TF. The only thing I recall was the Empaths of Green Machine had a rough time. No regen debuffs and no /Sonic's on a 5-man team spelled disaster.

I've done the first often (or at least no attempt was made to gain serious defense), but no Hover or Combat Jumping or ... unless you're speaking of only from Primary and Secondary sets. Edit: Cause you can pry CJ+Hurdle from my Cold dead hands 🤪

Not necessarily if the set bonuses are good for the overall build. Might not be ideal but worthless doesn't always follow either. Really depends on the build as a whole. May want to start a thread posting up your build for comment and suggestion. Fortunately respecs are readily available so if the consensus is in fact oops changing things up is a ready option.

Yes it is a proc 120 which is why you typically see it placed in Health. It will also work 'continuously' in a toggle power (and for about ~120 sec after the toggle shuts off). Likewise it provides the +recovery for 120 sec after the power it's in is clicked. It's also worth noting it works like set bonus so the power it's slotted in does not need to be active but it will stop working if the level of the IO is more than 3 under your exemplar level (so attune or use the level 20 version).