Doomguide2005

+4 AV's shrug just about all debuffs. 87% AV Resistance plus 48% Purple Patch mods makes all resistable debuffs flinch. Even huge debuffs like Benumb and Lingering Rad are seriously impaired. The "regular" +4 mobs only have the purple patch going for them and the drain and recovery debuffs will smart. But yes it's a very yes/no sort of debuff either it's crippling or it's hardly noticed.

My friend called him "Subway Boy". Player says he's going to make a sandwich to the team. This between the 3rd and 4th missions of an ITF. Teams polite, everyone takes a break, grabs a drink, bathroom etc.. Few minutes later everyone's back ready to go except Subway Boy. After a few minutes the team stops waiting and starts the last mission. They've all but finished Rommy when Subway Boy rejoins. Was he just door sitting getting merits, wtf? Nope apparently he quite literally went out to Subway to get a sub ... 🤦‍♂️

I think in part this stems from the fact the primary, Empathy, is strictly a buffing set. There are no debuffs to stack up secondary effects with the debuff effects in the secondary. The closest thing that way really is the ability to use the FF proc to boost recharge found in primarily Water and Energy. The biggest thing for an Empath is a ready group of Allies to buff as only the two Auras buff themselves.

Sunset happened before my Emp/Elec/Power was anywhere near completed and deja vu my computer died before the one I started on HC got serious leveling done. But yeah in Mids let's just say really high recharge coupled with Power Build Up does some insane things with Short Circuit's endurance drain and endurance recovery ability nevermind the rest of the set. (as in -200% recovery, -70 endurance on a 7 sec recharge and yes that stacks itself).

Oh no doubt there's a lot of subjective feel there combined with an utter lack at the time about the actual numbers ... yeah it very much could be completely in my head. And watching him Fire off any number of Fire Blasts quick animations to further feel the difference while held. He's also shaking off a 0.48 mez resisted effectively mag 1 hold vs my non-resisted mag 3 hold and that's the part where my memories are old and foggy, like there's some detail missing. Or my brain is making stuff up. Not sure which. Edit: of course one detail not mentioned is the Purple Patch which further messes with the durations at minimum.

^This I have had the same experience. It's worth noting both occurred in the pre-IO and pre-real numbers/combat attributes era so no numbers known at the time, just the experience. My Fire/Nrg and an SG mate, also Fire/Nrg. Purely anecdotally we were running on an 8 man team against Carnies. I noticed he spent a lot less time held. He had Acrobatics, I did not. Being on a large team I didn't die, neither did he but I did spend more time held than he did. Interestingly it was also Carnies. Coincidence or a commonly used Power by them I have no idea. And how much of that was the mez resistance vs mag protection in Acrobatics or both I'm also unsure. Tried searching the HCwiki for powers that use Hold but the article is incomplete. Following links to external articles led to the old forums and a post where someone had links of a compilation of all critters mez powers documented but given my phone only computing and internet connection capability that was as far as I got last night. Edit: I'm wanting to look around a lot more because old memories (those oh so reliable 9+yr old things floating in my brain) tell me things are a bit more complicated than the wiki seems to indicate currently.

There are soooooo many ways to "Rez" in this game my numerous Empaths regularly skip Resurrect and save a power choice and I'm ready to combine for a wakie if the numerous methods seem to not be at the ready. Hell with how fast folks get to mission doors these days go to hospital and 'poof' back to the mission seems viable.

Well I've now seen two /Beam and a /Fire do an ITF at +4/×8 solo. Both /Beam were Master of, no inspirations used runs. I believe all Empathy/** could do it. Beam, Sonic, Dark, Rad, Energy and Water probably are the strongest for solo work. I had an older Emp/Sonic/Power build that could fight lvl 54 3 boss mobs of Rikti in "the RWZ challenge" to a draw (no pets, no breaking aggro, and at least 3 bosses in mob). They couldn't kill her, she couldn't defeat them. They'd invariably mez her and regen too much health before she'd start attacking again. But that was also an i13 pre Incarnate project I never got around to upgrading. I've no doubt if I added incarnate abilities (and otherwise upgraded the build) she'd take them down these days. Today she'd have Incarnate abilities boosting damage and a nuke that wouldn't crash her end plus an Incarnate nuke. My own Empath badasses were /Dark, /Rad, 3 /Sonic, /Assault Rifle and /Fire. All were "GM" builds except the alt #2 build on the one /Sonic mentioned above. And technically the Emp/AR was a redside character and 2 of them were on Pinnacle and not in Green Machine but the builds were GM compliant.

@The Mighty Paladin As I said yes you could develop an "Acid Blast" set. The catch is there's a whole realm of things that could see development but we have a small volunteer team doing all the lifting (heavy or other otherwise). For now to scratch that itch I'd use the versatile costume creator to recolor the animations and look to see if a modder has or could make a sound file or 9 to replace the current ones with the sizzle and popping you are looking for. My response isn't meant as a no but more as it's probably not right around the corner response. And maybe as well work out what the 9 powers are you'd like to see in the set.

Well yes it could, but sounds a lot more like costume color options plus redone sound fx rather than a new power set. Rename, recolor, and change sounds and water blast is now acid blast.

Yeah while it would be sweet to make them mobile I've no desire to lose the benefits of stacking them. Triage Beacon in particular really benefits from doing so. And while names of a power certainly don't always mesh well with actual function, traps are statically placed objects which makes a mobile AM (or the other traps in the set) kind of counter to the core idea of the set.

Yes indeed, if I die on a support character while teamed including on one of my Empaths it's almost always in the cramped quarters of mission two. Often it's while caught between the spawns of an ambush and a cyst on a fast moving team that's mostly focused on the cysts (i.e. and not worrying about mobs left behind). The cramped quarters make running away or evading aggro all but impossible.

Very well done and excellent time. Believe @Lex Talion's time was around 3 hrs 28 min on his Master, no inspirations, +4/×8, run. (See: "The Emp with a Boomstick - Solo MoITF 54/8, No Insp" post, currently on page 9 this thread). What was your secondary?

Like @Omega Forcesaid overall, but thinking an SR Tanker would do well. Being a Tanker means those capped defenses come online sooner and can be effectively slotted for all 3 positions by 20th. You can't debuff what you can't hit.

I'm not sure there really is a best secondary for an Empath. Really depends on what you intend for your Empath to be doing and at what level they will be doing it. For a team running at the upper levels and endgame content many will point towards /Sonic as Empathy has no debuffs and Sonic can put out serious amounts of resistance debuffs which benefit everyone attacking the target. Fire is well Fire, lots of damage with a side of damage. Dark and Rad can get nasty with procs. Energy and Water can use FF +rchg procs and soft control thru kb/kd and Empaths love recharge. So fairly strong case can be made for quite a few of the blast sets. Do you have any preferences or thoughts on which you might prefer?

Oh that's easy @Bill Z Bubba. Just solo the LGTF, trigger an invasion, rinse repeat until you get the needed badges OR Send large gift to the appropriate GMs to get them to trigger a few 😜

His ability to Hold Rommy helps but is trivial compared to several other factors. For one it's part-time owing to the PToD (Purple Triangles of Death). When those triangles are up his Hold isn't overcoming his protection. Even with perma Dom that's stacking 9+ Holds before considering the effects of mez duration and resistance as Rommy has at least 53 pts of Protection while they're up. You need to keep him at range. Hover and/or Immobilization. He uses Hover and brings in Imperious to tank as well as add dps. Then adds more dps and regen debuff with his Lore pet.

What sets is your Mastermind? EDIT: And are you allowing yourself to select pet summons powers (and just not summon your pets) or not even selecting those powers. The first would allow you to use the powers to mule IOs for set bonuses, the second does not.

One method I've used is start my second build placing the real expensive sets and IOs in the second build while placing the rest plus whatever is substituting for the pricey IOs in the first build. I'll slot the expensive stuff over time as my inf and hopefully a few lucky drops happen along the way while playing and using the first build. Eventually the second build has all the expensive needs slotted, unslot (or even repurchase) the inexpensive IOs and move them into the second and now primary build. Then you can use what's left as the basis for an alt build or move them to either storage or another new character. Rinse repeat.

Don't know if you've ever tried the Theft of Essence + end proc? I haven't and very little idea how it would work with the current mechanics honestly. Might fire too infrequently but ... it is the same return when it triggers as the Performance Shifter proc, i.e. 10% back.

Yep, I want to say there are visual effects for various mez conditions ... at least for some of them. But I've been unable to log in long enough that I'm unsure at this point. Ditto for an icon showing up in your buff/debuff icon ... I think. Damn I need to get back online! Something large(r) and obvious would be a great addition.

Good to know about Infiltration. I've heard similar but owing to dead computer no experience with it so didn't mention it. As for Rocky *smack* yes though the oversight was more to do with thinking about Psi defense rather than resistance though obviously defense isn't relevant since he won't generally care if he's hit because of that immunity. Should have trusted my memories more since that's what my 'feelings' told me.

Indeed I had a Dark/Rad and Dark/Fire defender I recall for sure at 50 then a Dark/Sonic that was in his 40's as I recall, as well as a Ice/Dark corruptor at 50. Probably others I'm forgetting or recalling a Mids build vs in game etc.. Nastiest was a 5 man static group with friends. All were something involving Dark and including 2 Dark Miasma (it ended up as 1 scrapper, 4 defenders). Mine wasn't a Dark Miasma but a Sonic/Dark. Kind of bored ourselves to death and playing as a group petered out in the 20's (crushing Arachnos on +4/×8 in Faultline) though mine saw 50.

Yes I've also run several Dark Miasma to 50 back on Live including a Dark/ Rad defender. Though sadly he hit 50 back in the dark ages of i5 or i6 and I got around to an IO build rather late and he had lots of ... competition for my attention at that point.

First destroy his regen -> HT and TG ✅, next hit him with resistance debuffs -> Tar Patch and resist debuff procs in Rad Blast ✅, next survive -> Hover out of reach with defenses, Heal as needed (TG), debuff his To Hit (lol, playing Dark), debuff his damage (TG and DN) ✅, limit mobility -> Tar Patch, HT ✅ Reap rewards! That should about sum it up. 😁