Doomguide2005

Truth but also sort of a subset of the likely majority of players making this choice. And against +4 EB's and up the debuffs and cc of Dark Miasma will be less effective at protecting you while solo. However, if you are 1) teamed (regardless of the presence of a classic tanking AT or not) and 2) fighting lower notorieties those debuffs and cc will greatly cut down on the need for capped defense allowing you to beef up other aspects of the build. Basically higher level AVs are highly resistant to debuffs and buffing yourself via sets bonuses is much more critical to surviving such encounters so its not really a problem of getting those defenses as deciding what sort of content are you going to face, particularly when solo and hence which type of build do you need.

Empathy/Sonic is very solid but Empathy is a fairly busy set which makes it a bit of "Do I stack -resist or cast my buffs" (Fortitude in particular demands a lot of attention). The reason it's often recommended for Empathy defenders (and this probably applies to corruptor Empaths as well) is Empathy has no debuffs to help out vs hard targets (no Tar Patch, Freezing Rain, Lingering Rad, Benumb etc.) and Sonic Attack gives them a highly desirable debuff with its blasts. As for Kins when many of its buffs became AoEs it got a lot less click happy then its original self. Now instead of 7 clicks to spread Speed Boost, 7 more for Increased Density, 7 for ... now it's 3 clicks and the entire League is covered not just your team. And for a Kin/Sonic this means they don't have Empathy's problem of choosing between buffing or blasting. A few clicks --> damage cap and now push their damage resistance in reverse to further up everyone's damage.

As far as I know Incarnates do not allow you to bypass or exceed the hard cap/hard limits only a portion of the Diminishing Returns due to ED. At best Elude has a 20 second downtime owing to the recharge hard capped limit of +400% --> 1000 base recharge ÷ 5 = 200 sec recharge. Eludes Duration is 180 seconds. And that would be impressive.

I haven't taken Elude in forever. That part of the post was more to point at the insane quantity of their to hit buffs. If I was already soft capped, popped both Elude and Barrier I'd have enough defense for about the first 10 seconds or so to floor their to hit chance which before my defense came into play is sitting at 50 (base)+100%(their inherent buff). So yes for a great deal of content Elude by itself enhanced would be sufficient. However for most content assuming I've slotted and using her toggles and passives etc. I'm already at the softcap and Elude is wasted. Her build is extremely sturdy and can and did handle pretty much any content at +4/×8 and unless I did something really dumb like I did against Reichsman pretty much never died. She does use Rebirth

Defense Debuffs will help more than Accuracy mods will but not as much as straight up To Hit buffs. But a nice combination of debuffs and to hit buffs that support heavy teams often carry is going to be very good. Little surprised your Rage didn't work better but if that's factored into your usual final hit numbers then their added defense is still hurting. Add in the TF setting and maybe it wasn't enough. Only the combat logs will tell for certain (plus Power Analyzer) or watching your last hit chance in combat attributes.

Powers not slotting per se. You need To Hit buffs. If running at +4 then your base chance (excluding level shift) is 39%. Now subtract 40 and be glad it's clamped at 5%. You would need utterly silly amounts of accuracy to get that anywhere near 95%. I think vs +3's that's 48 instead of 39 so your off the floor at least and up to 8% ... that's about 1200% accuracy if my math is correct off the cuff. To Hit buffs -> Kismet, Tactics and Focused Accuracy (or teammates).

I really need to go find a thread where I was, iirc, informed this proc did stupidly good things used in Triage Beacon and Sprit Tree and see how clearly I'm recalling things. Edit: well so far it's been a fruitless search for the post, but if I'm understanding @Vandenabove it should act closer to Gaussian's in Tactics than your typical AoE proc.

Ummm I don't really "shoehorn" any of them in. They are there like anything else in the build, as a choice. I probably lean heavily on Super Speed, but I had a wide variety on Live and the trend continued here on HC. I did/do tend to avoid Teleport, but I have at least one Sorcery user who uses Mystic Flight (Fly and Teleport) from the pool. (And a Warshade but that's its own unique thing.) But the Teleport isn't for travel as much as tactically moving around an obstacle or annoyingly placed mobs honestly. Likewise I had several Empaths who had both Super Speed and Recall Friend or Flying and Recall Friend on at least one of their builds. My FFoF character was required to have Recall Friend and also had Super Speed. My Claws/SR (my Main of mains) had at one point or another every travel power except Teleport and did so for considerable stretches of in game time, including having none. Originally a Super Jumper, then a stretch as a Flyer then none at all beyond Combat Jumping+Swift+Hurdle+Quickness. Often had different powers on different builds. Currently she has none with jet pack when needed. My Kin/Psi ran for quite a while with none using his Kinetics powers as his travel power. This was back when it was still 14th level before you got a travel power. Sucked when your Siphon Speed missed especially when a lowbie 30 something in Bricks or Founder's.

A time for the formation of the Repeat Offenders Coalition ... healorz indeed bah!

This also ... with the provision you're only protected when at full health. Even 1 hit point off full health and it can seem like you're one-shot. If I'm not mistaken DoT can also kill defeat you. But it has been a long time, memories are fuzzy. One of the last and more memorable defeats on my main (the aforementioned Claws/SR) was against Reichsman when he clobbered her with a one-two for about 1800 total health. I had around 1750 at that time. It inspired her last Live build which had just over 2100 health. PS: And even there Reichsman benefitted from stoopid player ... the first blow stunned me, scrapper-locked I'd not hit PB which made the second blow far easier to land. Oops.

Psi and Toxic are both unresisted by SR's scaling resistances. For that matter SR has no defense against either as well. If those damage types don't have a position it's going to hurt. Fortunately both tend to have a position which SR almost certainly has capped defense against. Purely typed attacks of either Psi or Toxic are exceedingly rare for which my SR characters are quite grateful. Basically while both Carnies and Arachnos use Psi and Toxic attacks what always concerned my Claws/SR was DE and Rularuu for their crazy To Hit buffs which make a laughing stock out of anyones defenses. *wanders off wondering if Barrier+Elude+softcap would be enough ... maybe ... for 10 seconds perhaps 😜*

Call me old fashioned but watching Headsplitter crit on the Lt behind the minion in front of me (speaking of narrow AoE's) has rarely been surpassed. "Krrrunch ... Ooooh!"

As alluded to above Storm's knockback can be managed by kb to kd IOs. The groups Dominator can use Roots to prevent kb as well. And thoughtful use can also manage the kb in many cases, i.e. hard to be problematic when the kb sends them only a few feet before slamming into the terrain or get above them (Hover) and knock them into ground etc.. Experiment and learn ... a static team of friends might give you a 'bad' time but in general friends will be more forgiving as well when your learning attempts go a bit sideways.

I don't believe the Sudden Accel kb to kd is worth the slot in Hurricane. Most of what you see is the Repel effect not KB. I may be wrong I was just starting to build with the 'new' ppm proc mechanic when my forced hiatus occurred (computer up and died) and it may be more effective than I expect. But assuming the proc can only trigger when actual kb occurs in Hurricane and that it only occurs once per 10 sec against a target. Well Hurricane's chance to due knockback is a base 5% i.e. nowhere near 100%. I realize (strongly suspect) you're after the +def(range) 6-slotting Stupefy but beware when the proc triggers you'll send one or more random foes sailing.

The main issue as i see it isn't the duration per se it's the fact they are single target. Both Fortitude and Adrenaline Boost, two of Empathy's best buffs, are single target. Compare with Pain whose buffs often effect the team/allies (as well as the caster themselves). Fortitude vs World of Pain Adrenaline Boost vs Painbringer All 4 can be fired off again before their duration is up. In particular this hurts Empaths where Fortitude is concerned. Fortitude is a very strong buff but it's single target. World of Pain is one click and done until recharge. Getting similar team coverage with Fortitude can be done but it requires two things from the Empath that put it at a comparative disadvantage. It demands a great deal of focus on global recharge in the build to be able to cast it to cover 6+ teammates. And the time spent casting Fortitude is also time not spent on other buffs or blasting.

The more Fire and Forget sets. Cold/Sonic is a very potent AV, GM, Hard target killer for example with tons of -resistance and -regen available.

Sonic is a very solid team-oriented defender. It's -30% resistance vs -22.5% resistance on both Sonic Siphon and Disruption Field and +20% resistance vs +15% resistance for the Ally shields defender vs corruptor, controller. A Sonic/Sonic defender can very rapidly turn a melee allies foe into something very squishy easily and rapidly hitting triple digit resistance debuffs (-100% after 3 attacks plus Field). Late game where defense capped allies abound fewer are resistance capped making the shields valuable. Early in i9 (the first issue with IOs) I was on a level 50 team doing a then brand new MoSTF. Very few IOs on those characters and we utterly tore the final 4 AVs apart taking them on all together. One of the 7 defenders was a Sonic/Sonic (and the 8th was a Fire/Kin controller).

@cohRockYeah, it's kind of rattling around in my brain ... Maybe it's just a loose bolt or two. But basically I think it's a Regeneration set problem in general which would get amplified the most with Tankers. That is when your clicks are ready to go your survivability is at its greatest. You can handle 'max' difficulty (whatever that is for you and your playstyle). When your clicks are on cool down you can handle 'min' difficulty. The difference between min and max grows greatest when your health is greatest. In general that will happen on a Tanker with a lot of +max health and high recharge build. Followed by Brutes, Scrappers then Stalkers. I'm not sure if it's a real problem or just "if you play Regen, this is an issue you'll have to deal with" problem. And that is you'll have a tough time finding a satisfactory notoriety setting. A setting on 'max' will be completely slaughter you when your survivability ebbs to 'min' and I suspect that gap might be rather large on a Tanker. Making for a very stop and start style that most teams aren't going to want to engage in (unless you're running with a bunch of Trappers perhaps 😜). Does that even begin to make sense? Though as I read this pretty sure it's at best only tangentially related to your OP. Might be as simple as they wish to 'fix regen' before porting it.

I think the major difference is recharge. Lack of global recharge via IOs really hurts. The more health you have and hence passive regen (i.e. tanker vs scrapper) the wider the gulf between the difficulties you can handle with clicks ready vs not. Even with set IOs and a self Heal my DM/SR Brute was noticeably less survivable than my Claws/SR scrapper primarily I believe owing to a considerably lower passive regen on the Brute (roughly half that of the scrapper). That gap would be far worse on a tanker.

Excellent point. Rocky is and can be made very sturdy and fulfill the same roll as PA in Illusion to tank AVs for the controller. About the only difference is he's not indestructible and having a Heal of some sort can helpful for the inevitable blows that get through.

With IOs and Incarnates involved I'm going to hazard the answer is: Yes 🤪 More specifically if a set can more drastically differ in performance from an all SO build at 50 and one decked out in a high-end IO build I'm not sure what that set would be and a Tanker would magnify that effect overall my gut tells me.

Your base is 10% ... a 40%, well good news is not effected by ED. But 40% of 10 is 4 so the total would be a 14% To Hit buff and anything past 40 starts dealing with ED's diminishing returns. Add in Kismet and you would be sitting at +20%. To Hit enhancement is Schedule B PS: Schedule A you can roughly double the base value (with 3 SOs worth). Might be where your brain was pulling that amount.

Start and pylon defeated times. Pylon hit points are static so it's basic math at that point. At least that's as I recall it.

@skoryyHow are you coming up with Tactics giving you a base 20%. Tactics is a base 10% To Hit for Blasters. Are you taking a 6% adding a fully enhanced Tactics to it for ~20% And what @Neogumberculessaid.

Unfortunately while not a terrible idea it's a far greater nerf than buff. It doesn't take much global recharge with its current recharge and duration to maintain a single Beacon full-time (200 base recharge, 90 sec duration). You're all but there just pushing recharge into the red within the power itself. Lack of mobility is the major issue. On the other hand that's Traps as a set overall. 5 of 9 powers place an immobile trap at a location (and caltrops are an immobile patch for a 6th) so I'm not so sure, as much as it is tempting to do so, that we should start introducing greater mobility to the traps within the set. A different solution is needed.