Doomguide2005

Indeed, knowledge, more IO's to choose from and Incarnates all contribute. That team from i9 was mostly SO with a sprinkling of HOs thrown in. I know mine had basically none at that time and fairly certain mine wasn't the only character built that way.

Couple things to note. Sleet, Rain of Fire those powers have Avoid in them ... which makes them try to run out of the AoE. Then if they've survived they'll turn and attack. It's also worth pointing out debuffs increase your threat rating. Darkest Night as Bill Z noted has neither Avoid nor Afraid and as a debuff is strong (and presumably increases threat more then a smaller value debuff). It's doing nothing but make whatever your fighting more likely to continue to attack. Generally if present in a debuff (like Tornado's) the mag of Avoid or Afraid way, way outstrips the mag of everything else as in the Afraid is on the order of 500 mag. That's a lot of threat to generate to overcome the Afraid.

Yeah that i9 MoSTF team was potent mix. I doubt, in fact I know just don't have the screen shots, but that team capped pretty much everything you could buff (or pushed it so high who cares). Defense triple digits (4 GM Empaths, 1 Cold). Resistance Sonic/Sonic, damage 8×Assault, 1 Kin, to hit, 8×Tactics, more endurance than usable, regen multiple RAs, 1 Kin ... and Fortitude, AB and Heat Loss on top ... then the debuffs. And the funniest thing is the STF was new enough that that mix of characters and powers actually discussed pulling the final 4 to separate them. We didn't and I think I recall 1 character flashing red for an instant as we chewed them up.

Indeed. Recall one SG run of the STF (long time ago, IOs were still new to many of us) where we had issues with Recluse doing the track star routine and chatting amongst ourselves afterwards and realizing it almost had to be the Afraid in Tornado (Defender character) that was doing it. Hot Feet I've never noticed it. Most of the HF users I teamed with were Controllers or I was on a Controller myself and was using Immobilize. Generally I wouldn't have had the chance to tell the difference between get out of burning ground and get out of town Afraid. PS: Lightning Storm also has Afraid, so both the t8 and t9 have Afraid add in the Avoid in FR and Repel from Hurricane and probably the only things not running or moving about will be Snipers and Turrets 😋 Chaos incarnate!

Okay yes I get that ... bigger boost on a smaller base number --> lowered impact,at least the way I read that, is not the same as less. You could have less impact because of the lower base and still net a greater value ultimately (just not as great). I think the rest of the posts have kind of filled in the blanks/questions particularly @Bill Z Bubba reply above.

I think I follow you but I'm also not talking about each 1% increase or even necessarily about it being a massive difference. And if you are saying at their cap Brutes are doing the same or less than a Scrapper at theirs hmmm I'll have to go have a look at those threads to settle it in my mind as 775 - 200 is 575 which is still greater than 500% (although accounting for the crits hmmm that is closer than my brain was thinking given how reliably the proc is said to make it happen).

Heh, I'll bet unless they are all high DDR or utterly avoid getting a mob around them. Virtually ensures cascade defense failure on anyone else who isn't really watching their defense value and uses inspires well. It's going to put the final hit value over 10% vs a minion, bosses at over 13% for softcapped characters then ups the damage significantly.

Simple one application Sleep effects no, not going to work.

The other place Brutes will edge out Scrappers and Tankers for damage output. When teaming with Kinetics (Corruptors, Controllers, Defenders) in the post Fulcrum Shift world. "Helloooo, my big beautiful damage cap."

And heavy defense debuffers. Without DDR (Defense Debuff Resistance) any defense debuffs can get problematic once that first one gets in past your capped defense. Cimerorans, for example, with all those sword attacks can trigger cascade defense failure fairly easily if they (when) they land the first attack.

And I always found ignoring your secondary oddly wrong even if you ARE trying to be a 'pure healor'. You will be able to use your HO, HA, AP more often if you take, fully slot, and enhance those blasts with sets for +recharge. Just remove those attacks from your trays and forget about them. No need to actually use them to benefit from them. Sheesh.

I've never ever hit 50 on a Kheldian. Kept trying especially on a Warshade (and especially since watching one, pre-IOs, nuke a spawn then mop up the corpses to instantly refill their health and end bars). They did it so rapidly this GM Empath player was amazed. Never gotten to 50 on a Praetorian while running only Goldside content. Never hit 50 on a Tanker. These last couple will happen, less sure about those Khelds. Haven't done it on a Sentinel yet but that is mostly a result of the computer going belly up. Never done a redside Hami. Never power leveled from creation to 50. I have done it for a few levels here and there. Never made a character specifically to farm, particularly to finance other characters. I have farmed but not often and it was primarily to fund that character. Never done the Seed of Hamidon event. Never created a character or used an alt build for PvP. Never solo'd a GM, the Monster sort, have solo'd plenty of GMs ... the Green sort 😜. Never collected all the badges. Dang close at one point Live, but then a new issue came along and added a bunch ... . Never got Bug Hunter so I was likely doomed there anyway. Never led an I-Trial Never tried the no enhancement challenge setting on a TF. Have done it in Oroborous for the badge. Never exemplared to level 1. Never got the "Rikti Gone Wild" badge on level 1 (or 2) character. Never switched alignments all the way via alignment missions (only via Null the Gull) Never switched off xp (as far as I recall). Definitely still stuff on the bucket list to do.

Interesting though it does make me realize that unlike most (all?) of my characters the game's AVs aren't particular fond of Combat Jumping. Fortunately for us Immobilizers.

All controls except Sleeps and Immobilizes are effected by the PtoD. Hence the advice up thread to bring your "immobing friends" and I've never seen it but something like Electric Controls pulsing reapplying Sleep might work. Chasing Rommy all over inspired many of my Defenders to take Electric Mastery's Electric Fence This prior to the newer ppm proc mechanics. Fast recharge with multiple procs it was quite deadly. And even with the proc changes many of my builds kept it just to stop runners, AVs in particular.

Totally agree. Fastest way to up the value of the defense/to hit portion of the equation is decrease the difficulty, second fastest way is pop yellow inspires. Continue on with run Tactics and enhance it and Focused Accuracy and again enhance it. Be happy with a smaller mob when you Soul Drain, ditto for RttC, etc.. Willpower is not an armor set that is going to find Cimerorans easy. I doubt my SR scrapper will notice much change, certainly not as dramatically as the difference for WP. 1 or 10 foes it makes no difference in my survivability. But I'd not want to solo +4/×8 Rularuu ... at least not and expect it to not change my overall tactics compared to fighting Malta.

Yeah he's facing a bit of a dilemma. Gather them for a good buffs for RttC and Soul Drain or not because that gathering also buffs their defense. His accuracy while decent isn't the problem its the defense and to hit inner clamp that's the issue. He needs to hit buffs to make that portion of the equation approach the 45 to 50 range so when multiplied by his accuracy (~2.0) he'll get up to 90+.

You need To Hit not Accuracy to really counter their defense buff. Liberal use of yellow inspires especially before using Soul Drain would probably help immensely.

The Numina's is what is called in the HCwiki as a proc 120. It will work in click powers (as well as toggles and autos). Basically proc 120's work for 120 seconds after the power is cast/activated. So in a click for you to always benefit you need to be able to use it every 120 seconds or less. I once used it in Healing Aura on a very slot tight solo Empathy build. Dropped Numina's in HA and Miracle in Health. Safest (as Best is both subjective and build dependent) is to use them in an auto power that's not going to be grayed out at whatever level you'll be running when exemped as low as you might go. Which is why Health is such a common choice. The other thing to note is Performance Shifter is not a unique IO. In my Claws/SR it's in both Stamina and Physical Perfection for example. And my BS/Regen could conceivably add it into Quick Recovery as well.

Yeah as far as I know the setting is just that the setting. Doesn't matter what the team (or lack there of) is +4/×8 sets the mobs at +4 no matter teams size and likewise the team portion, regardless of its actually size, is generated as if the team had 8 members.

I have played numerous Defender Empaths on teams ranging from League, large and small, to solo and at pretty much every difficulty level including while solo between Live and HC One thing I can safely say is you'll likely never be as good a 'dedicated' Empath (whatever the hell that is) as you could be by neglecting your secondary, pools and other non-primary powers. Your teams will suffer as a result. And I have one very confused 'dedicated' Claws/SR scrapper. "Hmmm damage dealer ... okay so I take Focused Fighting because I have to and then what? Nothing in my secondary directly helps me deal damage? Just status and knock protection plus defense based armors." Nevermind the Brutes ...

That's because accuracy in the Attack Mechanics occurs after the to hit/defense portion is figured (and clamped). And Mids isn't accounting for any defense buffs. So 48 plus 6% = 54% good start (that's basically accounting for your portion of things). But now account for their defense. You can do that by going back into Mids and set that number as your Base instead of 48. If they've only managed a 30% buff that's 24 (54 - 30 --> somewhere between fighting +5's and +6's). If I've read it correctly 30 is about 5 close to each other ... if you're gathering 10 ... Ouch! You're now looking at setting mids to around 8 or 9% to account for their defense before accuracy is applied. Edit: As an example some of the things I'd being doing on my Claws/SR Try to leave the last group with FU buff active Toggle on Tactics, more To Hit Open with Shockwave (knockdown) While they're on their butts get in and Soul Drain (LOL no Soul Drain for me ... proceed to 5.) Now use Void Move away ... rinse and repeat (and I don't even really care if they are defeated). Move and they chase and aren't buffing. Or some are and some aren't moving = no or less buffs as it pulls them apart.

I'd imagine so. But if you're running solo at max and gathering them up for a nice RttC, Soul Drain or other PBAoE buff or attack ... well oops! if you expect to land hits without mezzing them or knocking them on their collective butts or otherwise disrupting their ability to to self buff because you are also maximizing their defense at the same time. Teams especially most high level ones also probably 1) have them mostly dead before they do anything 2) have at least 1 or 2 running Tactics 3) dropping mezzes and debuffs galore ... namely a teams alpha strike is pretty much prevents their buffs from ever occuring. PS: But that is assuming the team is acting like a team. Scrappers, Brutes etc., running off alone and pulling them close to each is asking to see those ugly numbers.

Accuracy does not equal To Hit. When the clamped portion for the defense and to hit buffs starts to get very low you need far, far more than 2.0 or 3.0 Accuracy to truly hit your targets. In other words if they've floored that first clamped portion of the equation to 5% or .05 you'd need absurd accuracy to raise your final hit chance (in combat attributes your 'last hit chance') to 0.95. Basically at that point you'd need an accuracy of 19.0+ (yes 1900+%) to have a final hit chance of 95% Streak Breaker? I would think your Final Hit value would need to be truly awful or the number of targets on the small side for you to actually miss all your targets. Only your 'last hit chance' or combat logs will report if this. Streak Breaker won't kick in and force a hit on say 16+ targets unless your final hit chance is above 0.2 (20%) ... which, for example, Soul Drain, would NOT be even with a 2.1 accuracy (0.05×2.1=0.105 or 10.5%). But that's all hypothetical or anecdotal without combat logs. But I'm pretty sure they are working as intended and yes their defense will get pretty silly high unless you change what you do to keep them from buffing themselves silly (welcome to the foes hitting their soft cap). I'd only really see it as problem if we (collectively) change tactics solo and still have major issues. Teams probably won't generally have issues (and in another thread that seems to be the reported case).

Other thoughts: Hover --> good spot for another LotG def/increased global recharge and if early in the build (active prior to Tactics) a good spot for a Kismet +6% (calls it accuracy in description but it's actually a To Hit buff). It can take a bunch of other special IOs as well but this is where not being able to use Mids messes with giving specific advice. Fly --> Usually I go with Super Speed (for the stealth and -threat) but I've used Flight as well. It was the travel power of choice on my first GM (Green Machine). Typically I 2-slot my travel power --> BotZ kb prot and Winter's Gift 20% global Leadership --> All my Defender Empaths take at least Assault and Tactics. Assault base slot endred. Tactics 1 or 2 slots most commonly. Either 1 endred or 2 endred/to hit. Computer died before I got around to doing much with procs as they currently work. In this case the Gaussian's proc. Maneuvers minimally a LotG def/Inc glob rech or more, depending on available slots. Vengeance base slot 1 LotG def/Inc global recharge. Edit: And doh, I always grab Hasten. 2 slots recharge IOs boosted to +5. I mean it is the way to boost your global recharge

Continuing from where I left off. Recovery Aura --> my typical slotting is 3 slots. Recharge + 2×endmod/recharge. But you could just straight up use 2 +5 boosted Recharge IOs. The base recovery boost is 200% or the equivalent of 8× the base of Stamina. In short it's a ton of recovery which on most builds is going to be plenty, particularly late game matured builds. Regeneration Aura --> Your second Aura. 5 slots typically using either Doctored Wounds or Panacea. I try to keep the recharge/cooldown periods on this and Recovery Aura matched up. It's one less thing to have to track, when one is ready so is the other. Position myself and click one then the other. Adrenaline Boost --> 5 slots these days (used to be 6). And, you guessed it, either 5 Doctored Wounds or Panacea. That 6th slot used to be an Endmod/recharge but since Nukes no longer crash no real need to enhance. It's already sitting at 800%. The real benefit is from the +100% recharge buff and the massive boost to regeneration. Combined with RegenAura that'll put someone at IH levels of regeneration. Fire Blast --> Again I'm emphasizing recharge so Decimation and Positron's Blast are my go to sets. Need 5 slots to get the recharge set bonus which leaves a 6th slot for procs.