Plutoria

So a few things I've learned about the set from this experience of beta testing for the past week clocking in way too many hours on this set alone. TLDR: 1) This set will never shine under pylon dps test because it doesn't fit neatly into that box 2)This set will never shine under AoE max target 10 - 16 aoe expectations because it doesn't fit neatly into that box 3) This set has special mechanics that allow it to far exceed the traditional 16 target cap in a unconventional way, allowing it to actually become a top tier DPS blast set in game when optimal conditions are met. But outside of optimal conditions it plays more like a ST focused set without being "bursty". Much like Beam Rifle having extra damage tied to a setup mechanic and Electrical blast. Not having access to a traditional Nuke can be a deal breaker for some I understand. 4) When enemy group overhauls took place many had their energy/neg energy resists increased. This created a counter to procs and many PC energy offense sets which usually had higher base/scaling ST damage, so out of the box as a result energy blast sets in particular that don't scale like melee counter parts, were left feeling much weaker. Beam Rifle was my go to blast set for years and felt the impact immediately, also many range energy based sets usually are ST focused, making groups of foes linger longer than usual but ended up feeling less bursty as they encountered higher and more common resist checks from foes. 5) After a week of dedicated play testing on beta, the set / animation times / overall dps, feels good and fluid outside of optimal conditions (aka Cat5/Cell window) (cloudburst another subject). Burning down bosses with chain lighting as part of single target attack chain, it made the set feel like a fluid ST blast set. Personally, I only liked using cloudburst on the corr and defenders and jumped at the opportunity to skip in on sent and blaster. All together the attack chain felt on par with most other blast sets in ST usage, which I think is a good thing, not over the top, not under performing ( except when encountering high energy resist foes then it was wet noodle status but having two cold based damage attacks helped this). 6) Damage, set identity and utility secondary effects are gate-kept behind primarily storm cell and setup time. This requires two mandatory powers, storm cell and Cat5. Even on sets like beam rifle and Electrical blast you can still opt out of some of their mechanics like disintegration and not feel overly handicapped. This isn't really a option for Storm Blast but you can still do it like MMs that skip pets. 7) This blast set can not function without it's mandatory interaction with storm cell. It can still function without Cat5. Cat5 design does not play friendly with traditional 16 target spawn pug play (bulk of gameplay experience). Storm Cell, followed by Cat5 set up requires engagements where a team isn't able to evaporate a spawn in 1-3 AoE rotation rounds. In solo situations, the "enemy" is setup time and aggro management/position control/incoming damage has to be successfully attained first and maintained before any further engagements with storm cell/Cat5 can take place. You can technically skip Cat5, while missing out on extra soft CC and damage procs that improve burst further (single and aoe) and only rely on storm cell. Storm cell comes into play very early, basically unlocking most of the set. Cat5 comes much later and requires more investment in universal recharge and mob management tools to get reliable usage out of it. 8 ) The set mechanics perform exceptionally well when allowed under the right conditions. The conflict seems in place with traditional gameplay experience and expectations not complimenting the set mechanics itself. Personal suggestion lean more into what Storm blast is all about, punishing large areas of foes in limited bursts of carnage. Keep storm cell delivery as it is but add in higher slow movement (runspeed only) values that only apply to placement and not the secondary effects itself (high winds), or a weaker version of ice patch where KD is only occasional or even almost like Liquid Nitrogen, combo of slow and occasional KD. Caltrops is around -80 runspeed with -3.50 max run speed and can be stacked on itself and slow enhanced. Liquid Nitrogen is -90 base. Storm cell can function the same way but without the DoT factor or proc ability as it currently stands. Extra context and personal perspective of the set as a whole: Intentional or not, the mechanics around this really was not designed for the speed/ multi judgement blast meta of 16 foes or less at a time like in Pugs/Speed-skipping TF. Equally it does not compliment "easy" difficulty content due to the ease of other blast sets all having a traditional nuke/upfront AoE payload. It suffers from the great healer paradox. It feels under performing only when compared to traditional blast sets, when things go smooth and easy. When difficulty spikes it truly shines and becomes a lightning fused Armageddon. You will never get the most out of this set in a smooth sailing team or running easy difficulty content solo. But will truly shine and blossom in harder content where foes typically live longer than usual or dealing with multiple spawn over aggro cap. Personally I like this blast set identity. "No singular source AoE spike dps really matters" when in a full group as collectively, everything adds up and foes typically die at roughly the same pace at the same 10-16 target cap and you move to the next spawn. Most classes are capped between the 10-16 foe threshold. Everyone's "Nuke" hits that same 16 or less spawn group within seconds of each other. Alternatively we have the option to lower or raise difficulty to match preferred play experience. Incarnate power levels skewed this with the 50+1 and 54 mob cap and judgment nukes. Once I stopped trying to think of this set in the box of traditional blast sets and leaned into its strengths I found how wrong I really was about it being anemic. The set plays in spirit of a Warshade, there are never enough or such a thing as too many mobs available unless it kills you. My own initial misconceptions, this is a low -mid performing dps blast set. This set will never shine under pylon dps test because it doesn't fit neatly into that box. The single target dps is actually pretty good and on par or even slightly better than many other blast sets when factoring in added lighting procs, Chain lighting in particular is an amazing power as it compliments your single target attack chain while also adding to your AoE. What I learned was, I had to play and build this blast set (regardless of AT) around the blast set itself to get the most out of it. So what did that mean? Looking at why initially the set "felt" sad. Damage and utility secondary is gate-kept behind setup time. ST burst window and AoE share the same requirements. This requires two mandatory powers, storm cell and Cat5. The blast set can not function without these, you could argue that storm cell is even more important than Cat5. You could actually drop Cat5 all together and still perform decently on storm cell alone. Drop storm cell and the set becomes gimped. That said, Cat5 usage allows you to unconventionally exceed the traditional AoE foe cap. Cat5's DoT aspect is negligible compared to where it's true power hides, when factoring in resist values/ enemy level (purple), regen rate vs damage tick. Blizzard from a DoT nuke stand point (especially in hands of corruptor) has more punch in -tohit interactions and DoT damage type/tickrate/values. Cat5 doesn't need to be blizzard though, Blizzard does it's own thing. but rather how Cat5's functions with chain lighting and other storm powers is it's purpose. Instead of a traditional 10-16 target cap nuke, or a bleed them out in the safety of a power boosted -tohit blizzard, it allows you to take advantage of "pet proc" and chain attack logic to continually seek more targets outside of the 16 cap limitations per attack chain activation. This set heavily rewards keeping attack powers within Storm blast and away from other sources when possible. Cat5 feels "bad" because it performs best when in high density or kill zone/area denial play where the objective is to continually feed in foes beyond 16 targets. The higher the difficulty/toughness of the enemies the more vicious this set becomes in damage, both single and AoE simultaneously. Cat5 is more like a activation mode, disrupting and staggering the enemies through soft CC, while giving bursts to your ST chain and by proxy dishing out additional AoE bursts from your ST and multi target powers. This unique interaction under these optimal conditions allows more destruction to occur than is provided by a traditional nuke when factoring in Cat5 duration/recharge values against the initial spike/recharge of a traditional nuke. So instead of a proper nuke, Cat5 instead turns a ST blast rotation into a aggressive AoE by proxy unrestricted to the traditional 10-16 target cap game logic. As targets fall, the AoE chain and procs still have opportunities to seek out fresh targets during it's initial lifespan/cast time. Which is an advantage granted to chain powers and pseudo pet procs. The other advantage is it allows you to chew through additional bosses with greater impact than a initial nuke and the downtime after during recharge that would give opportunities for said bosses to recover health or keep up their assault. However in order to achieve this you are required to already place Storm cell into play and have aggro/damage received under control during your burst window. For a traditional 16 target situation, you have to setup a method to absorb alpha strike and the damage the follows while setting up storm cell, Cat5 and then your "st" dps rotation while AoE is unleashed by proxy. In team play, ideally team members assist with setup precautions, what works against this set in traditional 16 target team play, in that ramp time will always exceed the dps burn of the collective group moving spawn to spawn, which goes against Storm cell being mandatory activation because of it's requirements for the set to even function but Cat5 optional since Cat5 requires Storm Cell and has no upfront payload. Benefits of Storm Cell equally require additional ramp time as you are required to build up stacks of storm brewing. All of this actually works great and fluid when fighting multiple foes and harder foes that last long enough for these conditions to be met. Storm Cell mechanic is great on paper but the delivery is counter intuitive in most game play situations outside of niche optimized situations. Traps often being a prime example of a set that struggled as well due to pseudo pet ramp/setup time, animation locks, stationary kill zone and long recharges. Storm Blast challenges comes from Setup 1 storm cell>Attack chain>Ramp X% for mechanics to fire under X conditions>attack chain at full effect at it's fastest. Intensify in theory is supposed to assist with the added 20% proc chance but the 10 second window is hardly noticeable and the minor 21% damage boost not as impactful. It seems it was intentionally designed under the assumption build up proc would already be placed into the power and tried to follow a similar mechanic logic as tidal forces? Intensify best benefits Gust, hailstones, chain lighting, quick form snipe, sentinel lighting strike more than it does cat5, jetstream, direct strike (long cast snipe version) or cloudburst. or setup 1 storm cell> Setup 2 Cat5 > attack chain ramp>attack chain full effect. In actual gameplay, even with this ramp up common elements not taking into account like team support, survival, mob control, other unexpected elements, getting unlucky and shutdown by foe CC, all compete with your actions per minute window. This is part of the fun of a game though. The frustration comes from only having a limited window to enjoy storm's special mechanics and if you miss it ( ran out of time or in team situations, all foes died before ramp could kick in) you have to restart all over again and wait on cooldowns without having the satisfaction of payoff (mostly in regards to Cat5). Beam Rifle and Electric blast have a "ramp up" but not a limited window of opportunity when it comes to damage output and still have access to a Nuke. Support sets like Traps, Dark, Poison, storm ect compete directly with the setup time of storm blast. Solo, we move at our own pace and is less impactful. On teams you are competing with kill time before the team moves on to the next spawn. It can feel pointless to setup and ramp when you are just better off, spamming your attack chain while ignoring the sets mechanics all together. Which is a choice but from a design perspective, defeats the purpose of implementing it at all. Storm Cell benefits and conflicts: Fast cast time and generous duration/size allows to keep it permanently up at all times. The only requirement is initial cast time/ground placement when moving to a new location. This interaction will always be at conflict with team play because it is inherently only offering a burst window and very minor debuff mechanic solely based on your follow up actions that must come from offense play triggered only by storm powers, long after placing the entity at target location and then building storm stacks. Outside of this, placement and usage has no benefit to the player or the team. Since most offense play in game is focused on front loaded damage, pre casting Storm Cell, then ramping for stacks, burst/offense wise will always have you behind in dps frontloaded output, which is counter intuitive for a offense set. However, that leaves Blasters, Sents and depending on the build intention, Corrs having conflict with gameplay experience more than power mechanic design itself. On initial cast of Storm cell, foes are not triggered but Storm Cell also "does nothing" as in the base speed and tohit buffs are almost unnoticeable and only compliment the set and gameplay as a whole overtime of extended combat rather than a soft debuff effect to impact alpha strikes or mob movement control. It in short doesn't "activate" until the player interacts with it through a ramp up process, For AoE and single target burst Storm Cell must always be placed first, stacks built and then Cat5 to push it into true burst numbers, In which your attack chain must start or you miss out on the purpose of casting both powers and ramping in the first place. I don't actually think this is inherently a bad thing, it just isn't complimentary to most gameplay situations in a team environment ( 16 targets and under context only). To compliment gameplay aimed in team environments for 16 target count and under, since storm cell is already up on demand perhaps turn it into a toggle ( The set is already end hungry as is) or a pet like Voltaic Sentinel that can't be targeted (could even borrow the cloud guy from cloudburst for visual). The power already doesn't require much slot dedication ( a perk) and doesn't play well with procs anyway and doesn't trigger combat/aggro as it is. This at least removes a extra setup action, Storm Cell doesn't have much impact for area denial purposes on initial cast and cloudburst encourages you to be in close range otherwise you are waiting for the cloud to reach it's target. Alternatively...Keep storm cell delivery as it is but add in higher slow movement values that only apply to placement and not the secondary effects itself (high winds), or a weaker version of ice patch ( almost like Liquid Nitrogen, combo of slow and occasional KD). This adds team value and reward for setup costs while also allowing in solo play a soft control to manage alpha strikes while not fully eliminating the threat ( not looking for earthquake or bonfire KD/KB values). Keep recharge / end values ect as it is.. or increase recharge, with base smaller radius, and allow for the placement of more than one Storm Cell (like with Times Distortion field or caltrops ), allowing storm cell to play more in to area denial play without initially falling too heavy into reliable control. higher slow movement also compliments the "fear" aspect of Cat5, which given the ability to pull beyond your basic 16, that scatter effect is very beneficial when paired with slowing powersets. Dark Blast is a great example of how a blast set can be designed around soft control, as is Ice blast, Energy, Seismic, sonic, Psy... This creates positive complimentary interaction gameplay across all AT's, giving more area denial play, soft but not OP or extra safe CC ( no different than what blasters already have access to in some secondaries and even primaries), initial team play setup feels a little less bad as you are contributing to mob control (while not dominating it from a single power source) and softening alpha strike (if occasional KD is applied) via team or solo in 16 target and less gameplay, the slow helps maintain some control over mobs in Cat5 while not over powering them from your blast set alone, opening more synergies in secondary selection or even choosing secondaries without much mob control and not feeling totally punished for it. the mechanics as is already reward SCell>Cat5 + lighting procs + chain lighting achieving AoE destruction. Having at minimum base caltrops -80 built into storm cell, gives it value outside of Cat5 use and being more than a mandatory power slot that gate keeps the set potential. Currently Storm cell serves as a extra additional setup time with initially little to no benefit solo or for team play during engagement or in tactical area denial gameplay currently feels less rewarding for a power that could be a click buff or toggle or summon instead, yet the activation in presence seems intended for area denial and soft CC contributions. This next opinion is likely not shared by all just from personal perspective but it feels like there is this dichotomy for me between gust and cloudburst. I appreciate cloudburst having a unique style to it, but it feels a bit out of place in set that seems to award aggressive gameplay. I think the concept works well for a animation borrowed from water blast even if I personally found the animation the least appealing of possible attack animations. I'd actually say you guys made this animation work and visually more interesting than what water blast did. Gust visually feels more impactful and seems odd it lacks KD and pains me that I rarely can justify taking it because hailstone or cloudburst will always take priority. Cloudburst, its interesting animation choice, activation time and damage delay for a DoT power...is problematic. Ice blast I feel did this direct damage spike in the form of bitter freeze ray, with a massive 2.50 animation time, but the animation looking impactful with following up on a hard hit, matches the vibe of storms direct strike. Ice blast, also has a nice high DoT attack that could be fed into the attack chain. What made freeze ray and bitter freeze ray rewarding to chain together was how the cast time of the DoT (with added procs for burst) weaved perfectly after using the long animation time of bitter freeze ray feeling like this double punch effect. Cloud burst not only has the 1.67 activation time but the further away you are from a target, the longer it takes for the damage to be delivered...effectively requiring you to be in melee to avoid this. Going Direct strike and then waiting for a cloud to arrive to relieve itself in a form of a DoT lacks not only visual appeal but unnecessary gameplay hindrance, especially in a set that already plays with long ramp up and delays for damage output. Ramp up and delay is a great trade off when the end result feels impactful and rewarding. Alternatively casting Cloudburst, going to direct strike, as the cloud travels to it's target, visually and mechanically firing and queing a faster attack after direct strike that isn't cloudburst, only for cloudburst to "arrive" and mechanically finish off the target but still consume the cast, damage and end cost of an attack after direct strike or for the cloud to arrive at a already dead target also doesn't feel rewarding in play. But it is hard to skip cloudburst given its huge 50% proc chance, debuff values and that corrs in particular do well with DoT and scourge. I truly feel like old angry man shakes fist at cloud when using this power. Please save me. Defenders compliment this set due to not traditionally being seen as bursty dps AT and their higher debuff values and support roles being more the focus than burst damage when it comes to actions per minute. The objective changes to spreading debuff support and less on the impact of dps delivered. However, spreading debuffs is still competing with the game experience of overloading offense to neuter threats. Debuffing roles are also ramp based and Storm pairs well with that so long as dealing damage isn't the focus but the primary powers will often still take priority when it comes to APM before storm blasts ramp up. Sents compliment this set as they have armor to soak up Alpha and follow up incoming damage, reducing more frequent situations of burst windows being missed for mob control/damage intake, reducing overall ramp period since full attention can be given to storm blast. Storm also has the added perk of getting around max target limitations usually placed on the AT, making the ramp up less impactful universally across the AT compared to the other ATs. Their epic pools offer many AoE control powers as well to help manage spawn scattering. Blasters compliment this set having access to many different secondaries by countering it's weakness in the form of more burst AoE, soft CC and extra survivability. What hurts Blasters most is the lack of a proper heavy AoE nuke. As their AT design is based on having access to burst single and AoE damage. So this will be initially viewed as a disadvantage given the role is about dishing out burst and sustain dps. Storm works the opposite of this however only when it comes to frontloaded burst. The blaster inherent which ramps up damage bonus the more you attack and the fight lingers on, works perfectly into Storms design, allowing for a vicious unleashing of ST and AoE once ramp is achieved. Corr are able to fill the middle ground between support and offense, scourge in particular will always favor DoT and heavy snipe like powers. Personally I enjoyed this set on Corr the most but found the building, planning a secondary that works for Storm blast and slotting had to be very intentional as the performance of storm blast would fall short very easily when the build wasn't focused and intentional in design where as the other AT's were more forgiving and flexible in overall performance (blaster sharing similar considerations to a degree as corr) What it "lacks" overall across all AT's, front loaded burst but this is not the set design, instead is shines in killing harder targets (rewarding ramp period) and groups of foes beyond the standard 16 group spawn (rewarding ramp period). Given the AoE aspects are technically small radius interactions via 15 foot jump of chain lighting and the pseudo pet lighting strikes, a means to control and keep density is what compliments this set best, The awkward usage of cloudburst further encourages close proximity to target and density. Slow movement, soft CC and reverse repel do really well here. However reliable or meaningful amounts of this is hard to come by in the set alone and even with secondary options, mob management abilities are a priority to allow the player to create optimal conditions on a more reliable basis. Without secondary sources to maintain mob density this set almost seems to fight against itself in having its CC tools aimed at dispersing groups while its AoE mechanics are focused on rewarding group density. It seems to want to reward a play style based on area denial and high aggro intake but provide little resources to assist in the demands for such a play style. Because of this, after lots of experimental slotting, I found large improvements in QoL and better sustainable damage output by making only a few slotting adjustments. Cat5, slot Superior Frozen Blast: Chance for Immobilize. This fires off at a extremely reliable rate, helping keep minions in place and most LTs. Bosses make up their own rules anyway when it comes to moving around the battle field. Interesting enough damage procs, even annihilation -res and Cupids Confuse procs were terrible, getting maybe one proc on one or two targets at most during its full duration. Overwhelming force KB to KD also did amazing here and in reducing the scattering and KB secondary effects. More to show this is a Soft CC power with special mode activation and not a nuke in design. Chain Lighting: Damage procs do good here but I leaned more in higher base damage, less damage proc loaded and Ragnarok: chance for knockdown. This helped turned it into a more reliable soft CC power, helping manage Mob aggression and disrupting movement. Not as consistent as Jolting Chain but close enough and damage being good. Far as tuning, balance and universal usage this is likely the best power in the set with direct strike coming in second because it is your standard snipe power with bonus stun proc. Hailstones: Mandatory Force Feedback but also devastation chance for mag 2 8 sec hold. This combos nicely with the rest for the ST chain to cover a issue I kept running into when facing hard targets. Direct Strike: Also devastation chance for hold proc Cloudburst: Also devastation chance for hold proc. Loaded more with damage procs to give it a little more burst to counter it's awkward design in gameplay outside of being a debuff and 50% lighting proc agent. Gust has terrible proc rate due to its low recharge value but Superior winter's bite: chance for -speed actually does really great in this power. Gust also works great in ST chain and making best use of intensify in a attack chain. Another benefit is it doesn't require high slot investment to reach its potential. Jet Stream: Almost like Beam rifle cutting beam, get more value by stacking damage procs to overcome the base 33% proc rate. That said I've always skipped Jet Stream where as I usually take cutting beam in beam rifle. Scattering mobs is counter intuitive to what this sets wants to accomplish. The KB/repel could be used to help herd mobs into a dense corner but the effort and time to accomplish that is better placed in just dragging aggro with you and letting them self herd around a corner of a wall/door tanker/brute style. A attack chain of Chain lighting for KD, cloudburst for hold proc and playing into its DoT and damage delay, followed up by hailstone (FF and hold proc) and last with Direct strike I found offered more consistent access to keeping bosses staggered and CC'd while initiating a burn. Without those "soft" CC elements I found myself chasing bosses around during Cat5 or them running around, out of range of mob density moving often too far out of the 15 foot jump range, killing AoE progress further ( outside of optimal conditions). Also without access to a secondary with hold/CC elements foes like werewolves(immune to slow), heavy debuffing bosses or phasing foes like illusionist became a absolute nightmare to defeat and given the nature of the set, rewarding larger pulls, higher reward for ramp and setup, prolonging time in combat and under fire, this means you end up with a pool of bosses eventually, so keeping one locked down to burn it down is of the upmost priority. The occasional mag 4 Stun proc via the blast mechanics helped in the stagger process since the mag 2 holds of only 8 seconds don't actually last as long and need to layer twice to even hold a boss for a moment. But full lockdown isn't required. Just staggering movement or shutting down phase/morph abilities. These collective changes regardless of secondary chosen helped in survivability and mob placement management immensely in a 54/8 setting with some combos even allowing for ease of 55/8. My best pairing thus far was time manipulation corr taking advantage of time distortion field, slowed response and times juncture, allowing for taking out 4-5 clusters of Arachnos. Cold domination allowed for higher damage strikes but Dark performed better in crowd management, alpha strike gone bad recovery, debuffing beyond traditional 16 target caps, since the objective is creating kill zones when possible and having a pet allows for more mobs to be pulled. But honestly all kill zone and debuffing sets work great with this blast set on the Def/Corr side of things. For Def, corr some support sets chosen struggled more than others naturally. Def, Blaster, Corr powersets that allowed for area denial, soft CC like slow, KD, reverse repel/telekinesis/blackhole worked great with storm blast. Sentinel is choose your favorite tank and spank armor flavor. For ease of use and taking advantage of storm blast mechanics, plus the critical strike feature being scourge lite, Sentinel leveraged this blast set best since ramp time requirements are less impactful, it allows the Sent to overcome target limitations, AoE vulnerability changes compliment this set too for extra -res, Sent mastery pools help fill in mob management gaps and extra AoE burst windows outside of ramp/setup. Blasters like Corr, required pre- planning your build around storm blast itself. Personally for the effort I found Corr more rewarding but that is in part because I like being able to have the option of more team support and i've always preferred dominators as my glass cannon AT over Blaster and not having a AoE impactful Nuke on a blaster just made me prefer the experience and perks of dominator more. Part of me thinks maybe I need to put more hours into Blaster testing but so far it feels this Blast set has better returns and experience play on the other 3 ATs. I spent too many hours on testing this blast set, build crafting and writing. I need to touch grass now. The real TLDR summary: Scale up difficulty, never stop pulling foes into your death trap, enjoy the carnage that is storm blast.

If memories serves correct a team at the end of finishing missions would also get a bonus lump of XP which would increase gradually as multiple missions are finished in succession. It technically applies when solo too but there was a "speed" factor involved. Back in the day stalkers redside use to PL teams by speeding to objective, to basically cash out the end of mission XP bonus and ramp up the multiplier associated with only the end of mission reward.

So i've always been a longtime user and fan of Energy aura even back on live days when it was considered a terrible armor set ( was brute at the time). I've been very happy with the changes over the years and how it has evolved. That said... EA without all the new QoL and balance upgrades its had over the years, just out of the box, having access to original values and overload, felt better as a whole than it does now with this new T9 change. It is absolutely still usable and serviceable as a armor set, and does it job even without access to a T9. EA has always in it's design had resist and defense holes to plug, it is possible to build around them, all of this to say, the T9 was never mandatory in a way that it's existence or non existence muted the set. That said, what Overload did do, was allow opportunities to turn the tide of battle, it's use felt like a truly "heroic" mechanic, allowing you to push through really punishing situations to either hold the line till your team could overcome or in a solo regard, give you the breathing room to over come cascading defense failure situations. It worked as a great counter play to heavy debuffing situations, because EA has always had lower DDR base and many of its defense holes are often linked to attacks that carry punishing -defense debuffs. With the new changes on HC ( for me I like higher difficulty experiences) it worked as great counter play. Even the crash was serviceable, because all that was required was at worse, remove yourself from combat for a few seconds, pop a blue and retoggle. At best you timed energy drain really well ( which was rewarding play), popped a blue just at the right moment, or you used your incarnate or accolades ( demonic aura/Magus). If the crash was the issue and desire for this change, maybe throw in the Hasten penalty. If this was a change because the original ability was perceived as too niche or overpowered, that is another conversation. Even with the harsh reductions of Hp and Def values, via testing, those values are still serviceable from the testing I did in extreme min/max builds intended for hard mode content and high survivability situations in a solo scenario. This is just talking about the numbers, it is still a hard nerf and requires very specific building but it's workable and just now consumes more slotting dedication for lesser results compared to original not slotted or heavy slotted. It is a heavy reduction no matter how you look at it. However the 30 second duration completely annihilates this T9. I have many sents, stalkers, scrappers, brutes using EA. I have not used the tank variation, my assumption for the positive feedback for tankers is because tankers by default tend to by design be defensive overkill, so their version and positive reception of the "weaker" but higher cycle use version makes perfect sense as the many holes that EA came with baseline are much easier to plug and shrug off without as many sacrifices to slotting and bonus building and add in the higher base HP tankers come with. I can already see that using MIDs for tanker variations. However, that luxury isn't carried over for the other ATs. The balance of resists values and plugging holes in defense and resists for neg energy, psi, toxic and depending on the build even fire/cold come up short and are often punishing. So extra attention when building and planning often has to take this into account. Overload in it's current state, personally, I have found it works as a nice speedbump buffer for opening alpha strikes to absorb possible defense debuffs with its added ( even though heavily reduced) base defense and the all important 34% DDR. I have always ran my EA with ageless anyway because DDR is always a bit short for this set. During that 30 seconds, it does it's job in absorbing initial round of debuffs or as a quick reaction counter to cascading defense. If that is the design plan for the T9, to absorb that single alpha strike, it technically works. Did I need to pop a t9 to absorb alpha strikes before the change or after the change? Not often. Does it's currently help with countering cascading defense failure? Technically it does for the very limited 30 seconds it is available. Does it provide the ability of a meaningful impact in difficult content or as a true "oh shit" button or provide a heroic holding the line moment? It no longer provides that. As of now it works as a slightly better Shadow Meld, because it has baked in DDR. Personally I was never fan of shadow meld. But having a T9 is still nicer than having nothing at all. On the topic of how overload use to work on high recharge builds and how high recharge builds use the current version (non tankers). Previously I was able to achieve extremely high uptime and reliable use of old overload. In short, Overload runs it course, I can pop either accolade (demonic/Magus) and or Incarnate Melee while waiting on Overload cooldown and by the time those wore off, I could activate Overload again, providing very high uptime. In normal 54 content, yes this was absolute overkill. Even in normal content, I rarely had to even play that way unless in situations of extreme bad rolls of heavy defense debuffs (like taking on extra groups of Arachnos/ambush mission). This was mostly useful in hardmode content, it by no means trivialized hard mode, it just allowed Energy Aura to be a reliable armor set ( especially for squishy ATs) or for a brute to leverage the higher HP cap and actually tank better than the stalker/scrapper/Sent variant. Brute overload is hurt honestly the most right now with this new change because the performance of "tanking" via Energy Aura baseline was already very close on par with scrappers, and this 30 second duration destroys what little leverage brutes had when using this set. And this is coming from someone that stopped playing brutes long ago and joined team scrapper =( Build variation before changes in regards to Overload: On a scrapper I often only used 2 basic recharge IOs or Doc wound recharge, the baseline overload provided enough generous buffs that nothing more was needed. Sent/Stalker usually fully slotted for defense (shield wall for the energy/Neg) resist and LoTG or absorb proc or Doc wound recharge) since HP was already capped without Overload and the extra defense helped plug holes that the scrapper build more easily achieved due to different slotting priorities. Sent in general had lower baseline ( now changed in this version). Brute: Slotted with health enhancement, recharge and sometimes a single LotG. capping out on Health allowed less harsh damage spikes during hard mode encounters where stalker and scrappers would see more frequent spikes due to lower resist and HP values. It made the brute the safer and more relaxed choice for actual tanking purposes. Using this same build logic but with the new T9 changes throwing myself not even in hardmode content but literally 4/8 54 arachnos, carnie and CoT ambush missions, (all of which could previously accomplish with ease using the T9 to counter holes and debuffs )the brute could not survive with the same ease as the scrapper. The scrapper being able to take out lethal targets and AoE faster literally made all the difference. The stalker mowed things even faster but was still built less sturdy than the scrapper and would see more frequent spikes in health and a few deaths from cascading defense events and nasty well timed Psi nukes ( the brute version still died more and had more death scares in spite of having much higher psi resists) and this was honestly lazy mode on my end using KM for offense because I happened to already have 3 KM/EA built on test made for hard mode survival. The sent performed better than the brute too(beam rifle/EA). Now I haven't used brutes as a main character in many years, only on testing server to test builds for comparison to create tighter scrappers/sent/stalkers builds. It was kinda sad seeing how the brute variant was actually suffering the worst from just the T9 changes due to slower kill speed and the 30 seconds of T9 just not being beneficial long enough ( for any of the non tankers but their DPS could at least compensate). T9 aside, cycling accolade and melee incarnate was still more reliable and useful. Which is the secret sauce for most of my dominators tanking the same content and only needing a base 20-25 defense and 40% resists. On the topic of abusing recharge, self buffed with extreme recharge builds, baseline, I pop overload and i'm looking at 1:28 recharge time, with good FF procs, it quickly drops to about 68 seconds on average. This initially seemed promising but I kept finding even with the extremely fast recharge and "on paper" high uptime, the 30 seconds literally wasn't enough to make true impactful difference compared to just not using the T9 and popping a couple purples or greens from my tray to counter situations of defense cascading. Going back to the use of Melee incarnate / Rop and accolade, basically being all that was really required to push through which can be replicated by any AT or armor set. That said, having a 30 second shadow meld with baked in DDR is still better than having nothing. Personally even if vastly less effective than it once was, I'll still put it to good use. It was a excellent and in some situations/builds a massive tanking tool, now it is more along the lines of a clean up defense debuffs for a few seconds clicky. Still useful, just radically different in usage and impact. Even if this is the dead set direction the HC team wants to go, 60-45 second duration would still make a world of difference. That 30 seconds is not always dedicated to exclusive offense/attacking, now a precious short window for eliminating dire threats or source of heavy debuffs. At 30 seconds you can't "ride it out". 180 seconds was amazing and often, was more than usually required for most situations. With the recharge changes and lower values, I think 60 or 45 second duration might be the sweet spot across build types. Personally I like the idea of keeping the current Overload and let others mutually choose the new one or original, everyone wins that way.

Waaay back did heavy testing on KM/EA for brute, Stalker and Scrapper. Not even updating using optimized builds aimed for the new changes in this patch, just the ones made from almost a year ago, with the new changes KM feels great on all 3 using dated builds. All builds were designed around high recharge and to survive (via Energy Aura) and hit ( power siphon +tohit) in hardmode content. The scrapper in particular built keeping power siphon with extremely high uptime. The brute build had some slight variation using repulsing torrent and more procs and the scrapper/stalker did not use repulsing and instead more raw damage to maximize crit scaling. I feel like I can't speak much on repulsing torrent because the welcomed changes between burst and focused burst, having the extra form of cone/aoe didn't seem required. It wasn't really required previously either because KM was pretty slow on the AoE as it was and the brute really just used it as extra range flavor for soft CC and more recharge procing in lower level content. But Burst and Focused burst feel good. Other more friendly AoE builds I use like TW still perform above and beyond better in that department which it should, but at least KM doesn't feel like a exclusively single target slog now vs 54 foes (still enjoyed KM set regardless). So on a aggressively high recharge build, I can cycle between burst and focused burst smoothly. Reading the DoT component on burst I was apprehensive initially but I actually like how it ended up performing. Aoe improvement aside the damage scaling and redistribution of smashing/energy felt and performed better too. I personally always enjoyed KM for the theme regardless of how it performed vs other better sets, so any improvements are welcomed ones. But it does feel less painful using it now from a gameplay perspective. Spreadsheet number crunching pylon/trapdoor times ect, can't speak on that aspect. On the topic of single target, taking into context using a higher recharge build where all attacks are available on demand, maybe reduce concentrated strike to match total focus animation time of roughly 2.53 if possible? Anything less than the 2.83 is a win already and having it at 2.67 is fantastic alone but going with a body blow /smashing blow /AS ( stalker only)/ focused burst or burst and repeat is a smoother chain and currently still does short work on 54 targets via scrapper/stalker with the added crit hits. CS still hits nicely but the animation time is still uncomfortable and doesn't give that same rewarding feeling of a chunky hit like total focus does after the long animation anticipation. But even as is, it is still a great improvement from where it was.

Should be doable on brute at 5/8, I've done solo clears ( not boxing 2 accounts) with a few dom, sent, scrapper, stalker, MM and corr builds I was playing around with. Control /debuffs powers are less effective naturally, and your personal damage output is a bit lower, The "feel" is almost like playing +4/8 on a fresh 50 without level shift with regards to damage output and incoming taken. Using a high dps dom build with a demon/dark MM as auto follow support, the pacing felt much better at +5, things still die and but they don't evaporate like 4/8. On topic of control powers, hard CC like holds/stuns/immob felt more slippery while soft control powers (KD/confuse/deep sleep/fear stacking) were more reliable. Overall, I like the +5 option. With regards to damage output, it was a noticeable change using solo builds that relied on proc damage, as the procs (without heavy -res to toss around) felt less effective compared to higher raw dps builds. Basically, your procs types will matter a bit more, the warshade werewolves in council missions are going to be tickled by your smashing/Neg/lethal procs without -res assistance. For the melee characters I was using Ice melee and SJ and armor types, psi, ea, dark, shield.

Scrapper (Kinetic Melee - Energy Aura) ROP.mbd Designed for taking hits in Hard mode, High overload uptime, when it drops cycle to demonic aura accolade, RoP and or hybrid. By the time one of those drop overload should be up again. For normal content pretty much overkill. This is an actual play tested build and not just theory crafted. FF procs and ageless allowed for shaving off base recharge to achieve desired result. Swap sorc for Experm to get AB if looking to just play in normal content. Scrapper (Kinetic Melee - Energy Aura) AB.mbd

During animation of Sleep Grenade and LRM Rocket no weapon skin is present. Dp/Nin with multiple weapons present on character if it makes any difference.

Subjective opinion but: If we are to assume the cone will stay would we be able to switch heavy burst in there instead? Would at least reward the jumping in and out of fray a bit more with the starting 50 foot range / 30 arc Adds a little more IO diversity Animation is a bit more flavorful compared to buckshot Set is already heavy in KB so one less KB wouldn't be missed.

Minor suggestion would it be possible to add a -Fly component to Cyro Freeze Ray? Would assist in lower level content ( like brickers and sky raiders) and incarnate boss mobs (Talons).

Touched a bit on this set with arse ctrl thread, figure I'd add a bit here. Currently testing Arse/Arse dom. Made a mix of builds and tested them with many foes types 54/8 as a Adepta Sororitas theme. Arsenal Assault: Honestly my new favorite Assault Set ( energy and dark being the others). Love: Targeting Drone Trip Mine because boom! ( Was always the fun part of devices/traps) Ignite - Purify the heretics in the name of The Emperor! Power up Unpopular opinion: As much as we all enjoy a good buttstroke the stun duration is extremely long ( plus with domination it's even longer) for a level 1 attack. Maybe it isn't a consensual buttstroke thus the longer than usual stun duration. Perhaps swap with KD/KB from Heavy Blow and put the stun in Heavy Blow? ( or reduce duration?) Swap Buck Shot for Slug? Slug would help close the ST range gap. Currently using Cryo Freeze Ray from control set (Burst>Ray>Ignite>Snipe & Heavy Blow when in melee range). Ignite, Heavy Blow, Snipe is tearing up bosses at a respectable rate. While I understand people being apprehensive with lethal it is hitting fairly hard with current setup. With all 3 -res procs baked into final build not really encountering issues vs most boss types. Trip mine has been filling the AoE gap ( add in AoE control powers with procs , incarnate) plus with ignite when mobs are close together. While the power scale is inline with PBAOE dom attacks of that tier one notable difference is that trip mine can't use damage procs to compensate. Maybe add the 50% chance for additional Fire damage like as with the other variations of trip mine? This keeps the primary power scale still in line with that tier level and helps boosts the damage for end game usage. This still gives the blaster version the upper edge in toe bombing damage and allows the traps variation a edge in higher damage scale with the interrupt penalty. Baseline defender is still at 126. Even if the additional damage chance is modified as a DoT effect still keeps the defender version more "bursty". 63.96 / 31.98 = 95.94 or 63.96/15.99 = 79.95 Engulfing darkness lvl 16 is 72.18 base ( 23.76 difference) but can still be slotted for procs Tremor is at 58.21 base( can also be slotted with procs) as a level 4 power Whirling Hands lvl 20 is 67.16 base, can proc and has special mechanic of double striking. Combustion lvl 20 is 75.91 base Can proc plus gets modified further from embrace of fire. Ice sword circle 69.74 Can proc and access at lvl 4. Dragon Tail lvl 20 - 52.46 ( lower damage but martial tends to be aoe heavier overall) Psy shockwave lvl 30 - 63.96 Atom Smasher lvl 24 - 90.51 Deafening wave 63.96 at lvl 20 Thorn Burst lvl 20 - 69.26 (data not showing properly for rending flurry) Could also remove buckshot and replace with trip mine This would open a lvl 20 slot Or could pop targeting drone in at 20 Ignite at 24 ( other ATs get at 22 and 28 ) Now opening up slot 30 for something with more punch like a modified Full Auto, modified Heavy Burst from SoA, or Or another melee ST option maybe even a hybrid situation like shooting off a chain induction?

Thoroughly enjoying The new sets on test. Rolled Troller and Dom, but dom has captured my heart. Running a 40k Battle sister theme. I look forward to this being a new main on live. Play tested solo 4/8 all foe types: Tranq Dart: ended up skipping on dom ( but kept on troller). Slotted on troller as x2 heal proc, hold proc, toxic proc power ( was using traps secondary). Sleep Grenade: My current set up is Heal proc, Cold proc, and immobile proc, slow enhancement. Working pretty well and appreciate the built in -slow. My play style tends to be aggressive and I rarely use AoE immobs so the proc immob is doing the trick I can see this as being skippable on both troller/dom ( skipped on the troller). Slow lasts about 30 seconds and with recharge focused build you can spread the love. Currently enjoying the design as it does stagger attacks from foes. Cryo Freeze Ray: I like that it offers a different damage type ( cold) and the general flavor of the attack power. Works as good as every other T2 ST hold. Not required but maybe a lingering -slow/-recharge effect to assist in low level applications without sets/end game influence? ( and additional possible slotting combos). Liquid Nitrogen: Tried different combos, ended up keeping it as one slot wonder. The KD patch compliments the set well. Dom: acc/dmg/end/rech single slot and on troller -12 res proc. Wouldn't mind if Slow Enhancements could be slotted to compliment the -slow factor and tie in with Sleep Grenade. Cloaking Device: Instant love Smoke Canister: tested different combos, Really love this power. Combo works great slotted or single slot on both troller/dom. Opening is great with the debuff to hit and confuse but mostly helps regulate aggro/alpha strikes. On dom i ended up 5 slotting: Confuse proc, Fiery Orb proc, +dmg proc, 2 damage procs ( energy/neg energy). Flashbang: 5 slotted purp with -tohit proc works great Tear gas: 5-6 slotted on different build combos. Gun drone: tried different slotting arrangements, works great if slots to spare and want to dump pet def/res in it to enhance other summons/temp pets. Currently just running with overwhelming KD and BU proc. Hits often and still very tanky out of the box. The KD proc gives it some soft control, the damage isn't anything to write home about ( even when fully enhanced) but it is a great tank pet and honestly I love the fact it helps pull aggro and can tank a few baddies. Gun Drone suggestion: To give more flavor to a control set, perhaps add additional attacks? Thematic suggestions: None lethal ST or AoE Immob? 16 sec recharge Web Grenade or 30 sec Area Web Grenade Beanbag / Taser (with damage) Long Recharge EMP type of attack like with some of the epic pets but of lesser effect? All that said, I can see why people may feel frustrated with how this control set plays. Personally I've always had a love for the soft control style sets over hard control. This set has a nice mix of both but seems to favor the soft control approach ( which matches my general play style.) It's also one of the first control sets where I've taken nearly every power. Traps: Enjoy the updates/overhaul to Time Bomb. Tested on all AT's but MM. I noticed Seekers changed so they no longer accept BU proc but they do take pet slotting now which makes more sense and has merit for most builds using traps. Arsenal Assault: Honestly my new favorite Assault Set ( energy and dark being the others). Love: Targeting Drone ( Can at last skip tactics for Assault toggle) Trip Mine because boom! ( Was always the fun part of devices/traps) Ignite - Purify the heretics in the name of The Emperor! ( with new changes made to power) Unpopular opinion: As much as we all enjoy a good buttstroke the stun duration is extremely long ( plus with domination it's even longer) for a level 1 attack. Maybe swap with KD/KB from Heavy Blow and put the stun in Heavy Blow? ( or reduce duration?) Selfish suggestion, Swap Buck Shot for Heavy Burst (like from SoA) or with Slug?

I appreciate your view and take on the discussion. At the core I actually agree and share many similar view points as yourself. They are in my personal opinion a well designed class that offers much flexibility and variety of build and play styles within their varied power selection. In regards to "Which is why I am wondering why anyone thinks they need to be improved. " I'm honestly not sure how else to further add context. My primary influence was really based on observations and personal experience of how DDR comes into play in how the game has scaled over time and in relation to defense based powersets. I equally agree and thought I was able to communicate how the suggestions I gave outside of DDR implementation were primarily more QoL than balance given the variety of options to build, play and leverage the fantastic tool set SoA has. So I do apologize in my failure to establish that. I would say if anything it is a testament to the class itself as I attempted to look at aspect's outside of DDR and all I could really suggest were Bane Spider Armor possibilities which as mentioned would be more QoL than balance. I agree with you, Banes are absolutely amazing between leveraging their toolkit and further improved once set bonuses and incarnates come into play. I feel it really is a class that gets slept on when compared to the appeal of forts, widows and crabs. In a way Veats in general have made it hard to stay invested in other AT's for me personally like stalkers, scrappers and brutes as they can be built to achieve amazing results PLUS all of the team support they provide. Mentioning the "tissue paper" comment was in context of many years back of my own experience first trying a bane ( coming from the fort/widow side of things) as well as experiences shared from players of past and attempting to think of minor adjustments that might have been able to provide a slightly smoother experience for a inexperienced player or someone new to using SoA whom are wanting to play a support type of character that plays differently than a defender/troller/corr. Its a old game and on private server so perhaps my mistake is considering what perhaps is such a outlier experience had these days. I don't honestly know on that but my intentions were well aligned. It was literally all I could think of which again I feel is a true testament to the solid design of the class itself. I have the impression that what you are communicating is "If it's not broken don't fix it" and if that is the case, you are not wrong, if we take into account all the other possibilities of classes or power-sets I would agree SoA ( and veats in general) are in a solid place. Especially considering how little comparatively they have required tweaks and changes over the years since implementation. It is a small dev team, I myself am entirely ignorant as to the time and resources it takes to implement any type of change behind the scenes, so yes if considering or looking at possible changes with a class that is pretty solid in it's current state starves higher priority projects then naturally as a member of this great community I would rather see efforts and time placed on higher priority projects. I also totally agree that Heats take the crown for slot starvation. When going for that min/max build style many different AT/Power sets will feel slot starved but HEATs for sure are on a whole other level ( and part of the fun of building them imo).

Over the years of playing many support classes and falling in love with all the flavors of Veats ( fort and widow too!) I've poured more hours into these classes ( and still so much more to explore) than I should admit to. While I'm not as active on the forums as to many other amazing contributors providing great information, discussion and general encouragement to other community members to give these fantastic ATs a try, suffice to say I've enjoyed the journey I've made exploring the possibilities and build variations of the Veats. Of the 4 I feel it is fair to admit that I've spent more time with the bane variation than the others. Being a support minded player being able to soft crowd control, offer team buffs, and an array of de-buffs naturally would gain my affection. Often times proposed changes and QoL requests always fall into the MOAR DAMAGE demands, I want to ideally avoid that here. Instead propose a few possible facelifts for the SoA as the devs and community have contributed to fantastic changes, thoughtful QoL updates and the addition even of more challenging content rewarding team play! It is no secret over the years from days of live to homecoming the game naturally progresses with a scaling power creep. Generally speaking, from set bonuses , procs, temp powers and incarnates most of this scaling is available for all to enjoy and further develop their character and class of choice. Occasionally some abilities, power sets and abilities fall behind as new content and power-sets are added to the game. An example many of us are aware of was force field, the changes made imho were fantastic and well thought out and complimented much of the newer content and changes made to the game over the years regarding defense. With some of this context being in mind those that have taken the time to read this may end up seeing where I'm going with this. Proposed updates: Defense Debuff Resist Bane Spider Armor Crab Omega Maneuver Crab Serum Regarding (and the player supported huntsman AT) Bane Spider Armor: 1) Ideally increase natural status protection 2) Add Health enhancement slotting to Bane Spider armor. General baseline durability has always been a little short. As mentioned previously, with access to set bonus, temps, incarnates there are ways to fill holes. The focus however is class identity. The executioner and the huntsmen are fearsome opponents. The version we have baseline are more like tissue paper in comparison. Crab, Fort, Widow all have amazing defensive, bulky and other additions to assist in their "toughness". Bane baseline was like a early version of Ninjitsu...only with less status protection, no self heal and no defense debuff resistance. Bane Spider armor from a base of 4 protection up to 6 or 8 ( effectively bringing it to 8-10 total with wolf spider armor) It is terrifying when the temp power defense amplifier drops and that extra buffer of status protection is lost when in the thick of combat or getting hit by AoE stuns and other things. It is also particular punishing when doing content that prevents the use of defense amplifier to help fill this hole. This would bring it closer inline not only with the other veats ( fort/widow being in the 10 range and crab in the 14 range) but also our scrappy counterparts that find themselves in the fray of melee ( blasters and heats having their own variations of protection dynamic to achieve results). I intentionally have not made mention of KB protection. There are other armor sets that also do not have KB prot included and you can achieve suitable levels of KB prot from set bonuses. Unlike temp powers these bonuses are not restricted from game content. Pool powers also add access to status protection so in general I feel this change is more QoL than balance urgency. Add Health enhancement slotting to Bane Spider armor with either limited enhancement capabilities or full. SoA's are pretty slot starved ( and power selection) as it is, so I don't feel this would be overly game breaking but more adding the option to players in how they seek to customize their character. The base health is at 214 HP for the Bane Spider armor. Veat max health is around 2400 which as is, requires exclusive focus on HP set hunting to get close to 2000. Alternatively could increase the base to around 300-400 and leave it as is only accepting the default resist sets. If this change would be made however I would equally suggest then next change for Crab. Regarding Crab Crab Serum Crab Omega Maneuver Bring Serum more in line on par with Dull Pain. The current version only adds up to around 428Hp base ( which is about half of what Bane base line is). Enhanced you are looking at around just shy of 700 with a 900ish heal ( ignoring incarnate and bonuses). Dull Pain on a scrapper is in the ball park of 1150 heal and 850 HP boost. Alternatively perhaps add a endurance discount or Regen/recovery bonus (effectively a hybrid between dull pain and energize but lower values). Crab Omega Maneuver I know this has been covered many times over the years. The damage for it's tier is anemic. It tends to be more on par with some lighter hitting defender nukes. ( honestly it is closer to the defender trip mine in damage...very underwhelming) I've gone through testing where I'll even massively debuff foes, stripping resistance and yet even with a fully damage boosted Omega, the hardest I seem to get it to hit for is almost a total of 150 damage. Frenzy which tends to be on the tickle factor of damage can even reach higher numbers. That said, the request I have isn't actually about the damage. But rather the unique taunt function. Going with the idea of Veats offering team support this is such a interesting and cool mechanic. If anything I would just suggest lowering the cool-down on the power itself so that with recharge investment or cool down reduction team buffs it falls more in line with the 35-60 second uptime like most other nukes. Rather than just chasing and bloating DPS as a focus , lean more into the alpha soaking role it plays. Perhaps even add a debuffing side effect to those that survive the blast like how seeker drones add a -tohit and - dmg debuff. Perhaps it could lower defense, resistance, damage or tohit. But truly just a shorter cool down would do the trick. The alpha soaking mostly assists in lower level content play. At 50 with sets and incarnates, The crabs I've built can just walk face first into groups of foes like Malta and Arachnos anyway at 50. However with the introduction of hard mode content and other challenges this taunt mechanic could be a fun tool to use to support the team and tank/brutes in the form of additional crowd control by briefly distracting foes. Primary change request is DDR. The difference between having Ageless DDR and nothing is night and day. The Bane in particular can very quickly get shredded. Once I'm able to keep Ageless Radial Epiphany up survivaliabilty jumps ten fold. That isn't to say it instantly becomes impervious to death. I just don't feel as fragile as say a corrupter or blaster without any buffing/debuffing support. Forts and widows get a base of roughly 34% and enhanced reaches around 54%. Elude brings a widow up further to about 80%. I'm not suggesting it needs to reach those levels. Bane in particular is a bit more of a hybrid of defense and resist almost like shield. Fort and Widow are more in line with Super Reflexes. Ageless offers between 21-42 DDR roughly as it ticks down. Many defense and defense hybrid armor sets tend to also be in the 30-50 ball park of DDR. A 30-40 DDR on bane would be just enough to protect it's defenses from being critically stripped within seconds. All defense sets run the risk of critical failure that is part of the game design.. but the moment you step into combat and everything is stripped while having less inherent "bulk" than a crab or scaling resists of widows/forts can be very frustrating. It also makes for a very difficult leveling experience needing to wait till you can max out destiny and throw tons of investment into set bonuses/min maxing. I feel this sadly discourages many people from truly getting to enjoy the Bane since each of the others just "work" more fluid ( endurance woes aside) through their leveling experience. The player supported "huntsman" actually offers a far more friendly leveling experience since it can stay at range much as other squishy ATs/Powersets do. On a personal note, I only started a bane years back (and fell in love with it) because via Mids, they just looked so awful and sad compared to everything else (other veats) I wanted to make it a personal challenge to see what I could accomplish. The class design really surprised me and I love the tool kit and theme. How to implement DDR I would suggest either baked into Bane armor ( not enhanceable) at a set value. Added to Cloaking Device (enhanceable) Or.. Splitting between the cloaking/armor option and adding the other amount to tactical Training Maneuvers. As mentioned at the start of this post what I love most about the Veat class identity is how it is a force multiplier as a team support class. Adding part of the DDR to team maneuvers compliments the support theme design, adds value as a support class since DDR as a team buff is fairly limited. As mentioned before, shield and force field being sets that offer this valuable resistance as well. Forts/Widows bring the extra psi resist and tohit while Crabs/banes could now bring additional buffing support in the form of a team DDR boost. The split could even be as simple as 21% baked into the Bane ( via Armor or cloaking) while the other 21% into the shared Maneuvers which equally benefits the Crab and still giving a defense edge to the bane while the crab keeps its bulky HP/Resist identity. From a team perspective this also helps makes them interchangeable since they provide the same amount of DDR to team. The percentages themselves I'm just pulling from ageless since it makes a noticeable difference yet isn't a game breaking amount ( and often lower than every other source of DDR in a armor set). Even when running true defense sets or widow/forts, I still grab ageless simply due to how valuable and noticeable having DDR is.

Mastermind (Ninjas - Trick Arrow).mbd Go trick arrow and never look back. You'll be surprised at how effective debuffs are. The ninjas keep themselves healed. Its a high APM play-style. Of the countless MM combos i've done, this one shreds hordes of mobs solo (54/8 all foe types, spider, carnies, DA mission mob types ect). Vengeance power boosted is pretty amazing but if you don't team often ( or people don't die often) can swap it out for poison gas arrow and slot the self heal proc into it. Open ideally with a power boosted flash arrow but not required for engagements. This build can pull multiple packs of mob and the ninjas/AoE procs will plow it all down. Grab defense amp buff from P2W for added status protection if you feel it is needed.

Pretty much anything will work with team support. That said, I was playing around awhile back with a KM/EA Stalker, Scrapper and Brute build. Basically high up time Overload and cycling Demonic Aura accolade/Melee resist incarnate toggle to cover the downtime. All three were able to handle single group mobs in a solo environment HM ITF at +2. Brute was much safer given it had a extra 1k Hp to soak spikes ( 3k limit). It's a little different than handling 54s non HM given the extra threats at play though, more moving around and making sure you don't get boxed in. I used ageless debuff resist as well.

For clarity of the post, with the new information knowing Cstrike is now a fixed rate I stopped making it a priority to attain a critical strike off of it now null. I moved the scrapper ATO for crit proc into Cstrike. Made further adjustments to other attack powers to gain a balance of raw damage and procs. Between these two actions the damage now far surpasses that of the brute ( with greater control and frequency of critical strikes) and now exceeds the stalker in AoE clearing while staying competitive with the ST output outside of assassination strikes (to which at that point the stalker dominates). Can't thank you enough Aethereal!

Really appreciate this! Thank you for the insight. It makes much more sense now.

( I assume this is in regards to the scrapper?) The build is operating on high recharge and found I was simply skipping over quick strike for body blow. Every other attack in the ST line up was hitting harder and dispatching foes. Body blow/quick strike is acting more as a set mule and rotation filler. Body blow has the stun stack and higher crit damage ( according to what mids is showing) which complimented a more defensive approach I was aiming for. Focused Burst is added Force feed back proc ( along with burst). This is to keep more uptime of the recharge proc to keep siphon going and to assist with Overload usage/recovery. Generally I was just cycling between Smashing blow and Cstrike. Since many attacks have longer animation times Smashing blow is always off cooldown after Cstrike, burst or focus landed. I would slip in body blow to attempt extra crit strikes or when rebuilding up siphon stacks. I would generally have 4-5 stacks of siphon going so even though Cstrike didn't crit for damage it still hit pretty hard ( usually mid cast I would drop to 4 stacks). Focused burst also had higher crit damage over quick strike and the addition of procs since quick would have had none in this particular build layout. I did play with procs in quick strike but the fire rate was extremely poor. I could also play the RNG game with decimation build up which helps scale the base and crit damage of other attacks further ( though it likely in a long run scenario be better with another proc but generally most things in the game rarely live long enough as it is) Focused burst is also my only range attack. ( It's a tight build designed for hardmode content which I did toss it into that fire and the results worked well.) The other incentive for dropping out quick strike was that its damage buff/debuff only had a 4 second duration and found it was not complimenting the building and maintaining of siphon stack buff/debuff. The original build had quick strike in it. On paper it appeared like it would had worked great in the build I was going for. In practice not as much...

Have been rigorously testing and experimenting with Kinetic Melee on Brute, Scrapper and Stalker ( with Energy aura secondary). Using near identical builds as I was aiming to get an idea between the three when it came to dps vs survival. This mostly is concerning Kinetic Melee with regards to the scrapper. After a few days and several hours each session of testing out all three ATs, The critical hit kit for the scrapper seems to be under performing for this set when pushed at a higher performance investment. I do sincerely feel that the state of Kinetic Melee on a scrapper is just the result of the power creep of the game, where as if assumed basic pre 50, standard ( no sets) enhancements, the scrapper would appear to be working "as intended" for this set. Body Blow, Smashing blow, Burst, Focused Burst and Concentrated Strike are the attacks in the general "chain". I did experiment with quick strike and eventually dropped it for body blow. Not taking the ATO/Procs in account between the brute and scrapper, KM damage output seems balanced with the scrapper pulling a noticeable difference ahead of the brute. By taking advantage of the fury feature of the brute and loading more procs over raw damage into attack powers I was able to quickly bridge this gap. Once I did I then attempted to replicate the same with the scrapper ( to boost it's dps over the brute) and eventually got to place where the brute and scrapper were doing close to average damage per encounter with the scrapper pulling ahead only when enough crits landed. Which for Kinetic Melee oddly enough the critical rate seemed higher with burst than it did with the single target attacks. I could clear faster on the scrapper but only due to the large boost and frequent critical from burst alone. Which is why you will see I subbed more proc and less raw damage for it in the scrapper. Overall the brute and scrapper were doing comparable single target damage with the occasional RNG factor of the scrapper. Since Concentrated Strike does not land critical damage, my primary single target critical spikes would be left to come from body blow, smashing blow and focused burst. For context: Body Blow on both ATs is holding a full set. (Superior scrapper strike & Superior Brute fury) Smashing blow is at 79% dmg with 2 procs (3.5ppm) on scrapper and the brute is at 45% dmg with 4 procs. ( alll 3.5ppm) Burst is at 51% dmg and 2 procs (3.5&4.5) on the scrapper and for the brute 96% dmg with one proc (4.5ppm) Focused burst is 78% dmg, 2 procs (4.5 & 3.5) and a Decimation BUP for scrapper. The Brute is 78% dmg and 3 procs ( 4.5 and two 3.5) Concentrated Strike 84% with 3 procs ( 4.5 and two 3.5) on the scrapper. Brute is 89% with 3 procs (4.5 and two 3.5) The small differences were eventually made as they seemed to complement the mechanics of each class as I aimed to achieved better performance. These both are operating on very high global recharge and ( against conventional wisdom Agility alpha for 33% recharge) The reason for the higher recharge focus was in part due to the goals within Energy aura and for high uptime of Power Siphon. The fire rate of the procs did drop slightly but nothing too noticeable over the course of any given combat encounter. Kinetic Melee vs Scrapper: One of the leading issues I kept coming across with the performance of this set were primarily the relation between Power siphon and Concentrated Strike : Power siphon: With a recharge focused build it is entirely possible to have high up time and on the occasion ( depending on force feed back triggers) steady / perma power siphon for both the brute and the scrapper. Even when I first started with a lower global recharge build ( 110%) I could still get steady uptime ( with force feed back procs) of this power ( having nothing more than a single recharge IO in it) . Concentrated Strike: Does not have a critical damage component. This attack was doing equal damage as the brute. The scaling is technically higher on the scrapper via paper values but when taking into account mob resists ( level 54 foes) and the general random nature of the average damage delivered the brute and scrapper version of this power was at equal standing ( taking into account a high fury bar). Without taking into account the scrapper crit ATOs, CStrike rarely refreshed power Siphon. Even when just holding out and using the attack exclusively I would get a average of 2-4 refreshes from an entire radio mission solo. When I added in the crit ATOs it was only a marginal and barely noticeable increase. Which brings us to the 50% global crit proc... So I tried placing this in a variety of different attacks to feel out where it felt it had performed "best". Generally I noticed Smashing blow and Burst had the best results for this ATO proc. Entering critical strike mode gives a short window in which an attack has a increased chance to land a crit. Arcana cast times: Kinetic Melee has long Arcana cast times ( To which I read were related to the window of how this ATO proc works) . Concentrated Strike would often miss this window or the refresh on Power Siphon was not working as intended. When the ATO was placed in Smashing blow I could usually get crits to fire off body blow, burst and focused burst. When I had it placed in Burst it would trigger often ( almost every activation) but the window for getting a crit on any follow up attack seemed to be lower. I admit I do not entirely know/understand the internal mechanics of this feature to understand why there was such a noticeable difference in performance. Stalker, Cstrike and build up recharge: Ctrike would crit very often and combined with the BU ATO in burst it was total overkill. Enjoyable overkill but the crit rate on Cstrike was above and beyond more reliable and consistent. The passive critical hits on all Kinetic Melee attacks was really fun. The rate of criticals firing was significantly higher than the scrapper. I assume it was due to the critical hits being less damage compared to harder crits a scrapper is intended to have? The function of critical of Cstrike appears to be working on the stalker set with high consistency. The purpose of this write up is to ask, Would it be possible to investigate the the critical rate and relationship between Siphon power and Concentrated Strike in regards to the Scrapper? Maybe by either increase the base critical rate of Cstrike or adjust the Arcana cast time? Or.... maybe .."scrap" the relationship all together and allow a partial critical damage bonus to critical strike since the Brute and Scrapper can hit for equal amounts on this attack. Given power siphon can easily attain a steady up time on both the brute and scrapper...and the high proc rate of build up refresh via the ATO on stalker, it feels that perhaps this relationship between the two powers has become redundant? Another idea if this relationship is preferred between the two ( Siphon/BU/Cstrike) is add higher stack cap to scrapper siphon? In it's current state the refresh from Cstrike is so low that it doesn't feel like a standout feature given the Brute can also keep high uptime and the stalker can critical refresh build up much easier from Cstrike ( without ATO even taking into account)

Oh one last FYI, If you land a power boosted debuff on a boss as main target, and then again as main target hit it with a non boosted debuff before the previous expires, the lower debuff overrides the boosted.

You are most welcome. As mentioned by @SeraphimKensai one of the great things about poison ( and this game in general) is that there are many different ways to build a character and they all work! I love seeing builds and play styles that are so different than my own and the creative approach behind it. If you want to roll Corr , then go with Corr. Poison is a pretty lethal set and is great at making everything hit like wet noodles and melt like warm butter. Tougher mobs do get hit with diminished returns(resists) so in many cases the end result isn't too much different with most sets ( some outliers) between corr and defender. On standard difficulty, poison trivializes everything so regardless of the AT you get the same result. If you want the perk of topping off teammates with ATO heal/absorb proc ( roughly 80hp/absorb so it is minor) or rather have scourge ( the better passive over vigilance) is more or less what it comes down to. I went with defender because I enjoyed having the extra support to my team and for the overkill debuffs that would get hit hard by resists in Hard mode ( the aim of the build). Also...dead teammates get puke rez ( great boost to dps for them) and team gets a power boosted vengeance! The debuff comparison between Corr and Def using identical build (dual pistols not included in chart) via power analyzer on 54 bosses With level shift in a standard mix of radio missions ( tested on different boss types these were the common averages I got) Troller / MM would be close to the corr range (troller gets a better power boost so might be a smidge higher while MM would be a little lower) Just to state again... the performance (boss was of zero threat) between the two was identical (due to how lethal poison is even at minimal base.) For standard content and a blast set with higher base damage / sniper attacks, I would likely go corrupter if the focus is more dps over heal procs. -tohit via Weaken Base / Power boosted / power boost & Clarion Radial Epiphany (first few seconds before Radial quickly diminishes) Defender (poison gas) -12 19 / 31 / 41 Corrupter (PG) -10 13/ 21 / 29 -Defense via Envenom Base / Power boosted / power boost & Clarion Radial Epiphany (first few seconds before Radial quickly diminishes) Defender (poison gas) -16 50/ 74 / 93 Corrupter (PG) -10 33/ 49 / 64 -Heal via Envenom Base / Power boosted / power boost & Clarion Radial Epiphany (first few seconds before Radial quickly diminishes) Defender 13/ 25 / 48 Corrupter 10/ 18 / 25 Defender / Corr -dmg PG -12 / Weak -24 / PG-9 / Weak -19 -Res PG -16 / Venom -26 / PG-9 / Venom -19

For those that don't have MIDs but want to see the values.

I play a Corr ( water) and Def (DP) for poison. The corr got replaced by the defender which is built for hard mode ITF. Used near identical values and slotting in the build. For reference... they both easily face tank 54/8 content once the debuffs are applied ( even heavy psi foes like carnies and spider). Use power boost to break alpha strikes and or stealth in drop poison trap. I found resist + -dmg helped more than high defense . Ageless +debuff resist is pretty vital for tougher foes that strip defense or mess with recharge. Can fit in soul drain if you prefer it, A few things that could be swapped out and moved around for it. Personally never needed soul drain. Used the dark mastery version too. Found power boost pulled more weight for me. Since I'm spoiled by the defender ATOs, could also drop a proc for entropic heal if you find you need a little patching. Highly suggest defense amp from p2w vendor. Getting CC'd can really wreck your day. I have a trick arrow Corr as well with similar stats and does fine without self healing so should be okay with rad. For anyone that is reading this and curious about -tohit/defense ratio.. countless hours of play, testing and experimenting I found 15-25 is the "sweet spot range" and 30 is on par with being soft capped. Corruptor - Radiation Blast - Poison.mxd This Villain build was built using Mids Reborn 3.4.7 https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn Level 50 Magic Corruptor Primary Power Set: Radiation Blast Secondary Power Set: Poison Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Sorcery Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery Villain Profile: ------------ Level 1: X-Ray Beam (A) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage (3) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance (3) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (5) Gladiator's Javelin - Chance of Damage(Toxic) (5) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage (7) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage Level 1: Envenom (A) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage (23) Shield Breaker - Defense Debuff (25) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Defense Debuff (25) Shield Breaker - Defense Debuff/Endurance/Recharge (27) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (27) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff Level 2: Alkaloid (A) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Endurance Level 4: Weaken (A) Siphon Insight - Chance for +ToHit (19) Siphon Insight - ToHit Debuff (19) Siphon Insight - Accuracy/ToHit Debuff (21) Siphon Insight - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (21) Siphon Insight - ToHit Debuff/Endurance/Recharge (23) Cloud Senses - Chance for Negative Energy Damage Level 6: Electron Haze (A) Superior Frozen Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (15) Superior Frozen Blast - Damage/Endurance (39) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown (45) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy) (50) Bombardment - Chance for Fire Damage (50) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge Level 8: Proton Volley (A) Apocalypse - Chance of Damage(Negative) (11) Apocalypse - Damage/Endurance (11) Apocalypse - Damage (13) Gladiator's Javelin - Chance of Damage(Toxic) (13) Sting of the Manticore - Chance of Damage(Toxic) (15) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage Level 10: Combat Jumping (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed (17) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) (17) Reactive Defenses - Defense (29) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage Level 12: Super Speed (A) Celerity - Endurance (33) Celerity - RunSpeed (48) Celerity - +Stealth Level 14: Maneuvers (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed (42) Luck of the Gambler - Defense (42) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance (42) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (43) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Recharge Level 16: Neurotoxic Breath (A) Ice Mistral's Torment - Chance for Cold Damage (43) Ice Mistral's Torment - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (45) Ice Mistral's Torment - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance Level 18: Cosmic Burst (A) Superior Scourging Blast - Accuracy/Damage (33) Superior Scourging Blast - RechargeTime/PBAoE +End (34) Superior Scourging Blast - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime (34) Superior Malice of the Corruptor - Accuracy/Damage (34) Superior Malice of the Corruptor - Damage/Endurance/Recharge (37) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage Level 20: Hasten (A) Recharge Reduction IO (43) Recharge Reduction IO Level 22: Aim (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance (39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance (39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge (40) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff (40) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance (40) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up Level 24: Tactics (A) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff/Endurance Level 26: Atomic Blast (A) Superior Scourging Blast - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (45) Superior Scourging Blast - Damage/RechargeTime (46) Superior Scourging Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (46) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage (46) Armageddon - Chance for Fire Damage (48) Superior Malice of the Corruptor - Recharge/Chance for Negative Energy Damage Level 28: Poison Trap (A) Eradication - Chance for Energy Damage (29) Eradication - Accuracy/Recharge (31) Eradication - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (31) Lockdown - Chance for +2 Mag Hold (33) Fury of the Gladiator - Chance for Res Debuff Level 30: Venomous Gas (A) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff/Recharge/Endurance (31) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff/Endurance Level 32: Vengeance (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed Level 35: Dark Embrace (A) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP (36) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (36) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (36) Impervium Armor - Resistance (37) Impervium Armor - Resistance/Endurance (37) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance Level 38: Power Boost (A) Recharge Reduction IO Level 41: Spirit Ward (A) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb Level 44: Mystic Flight (A) Winter's Gift - Slow Resistance (20%) Level 47: Rune of Protection (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% (48) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance (50) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance Level 49: Elixir of Life (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) Level 1: Brawl (A) Empty Level 1: Scourge Level 1: Sprint (A) Empty Level 2: Rest (A) Empty Level 1: Swift (A) Empty Level 1: Health (A) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance (9) Miracle - +Recovery (9) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery Level 1: Hurdle (A) Empty Level 1: Stamina (A) Power Transfer - Chance to Heal Self (7) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End Level 49: Quick Form Level 50: Paralytic Radial Flawless Interface Level 50: Void Radial Final Judgement Level 50: Ageless Radial Epiphany Level 50: Intuition Radial Paragon Level 50: Born In Battle Level 50: Marshal Level 50: Invader Level 50: High Pain Threshold Level 24: Speed Phase ------------

TLDR: Would you rather have scourge and higher damage cap or the defender ATO procs with hypothetically additional slot/IO/power selection? That is the only main difference between the two in regards to traps from my experiences. Context: Def usually allows me to hit whatever my def/resist goal is while having more freedom with slot placement and choices of IOs/powers. Corr typically to reach similar values limits my choices as the slots/IOs are being built in mind of reaching X values. In group play with other support ATs I would suggest corr since others help boost those values. Also Corr has higher damage cap and scourge shines on higher hp targets. The defender passive is rather terrible when in actual team play scenarios. Solo scourge allows the corr to clear targets "faster" but the difference between the two is minimal with the builds I tend to use ( pistol,beam,AR). Scourge is like having extra free procs in all attack powers or like a better end redux since its like "hitting twice" thus reducing overall end usage. The defender version of a trap setup is just easier when dealing with more troublesome types (arachnos/CoS). because it hits higher psi def without it being a IO focus ( because pool powers have much higher base values) and the defender ATOs fire off really often so the healing/absorb proc pretty much keeps you in good standing while also keeping pets alive. So on the "harder" foe groups my Def variant clears it marginally quicker since its safer play and I can just focus on plowing things down while forgetting about my insp tray. Small team/towing lackey, Def brings a bit more healing coverage due to the ATOs. But As mentioned before, the actual debuff values between corr,troll,mm,def is minimal when it comes to traps ( MMs can get the resists and defense of trap pets higher so there is that but their version of acid motor is worst imho due to different slotting allowances). The only incentive for def in regards to myself are the ATO procs and additional freedom with slots ( if that even happens to be a goal).

Generally squishy doesn't fit the d3 narrative due to the mix of CC tools, debuffs and healing output. End heavy, yeah.. compared to power sets with native end recovery or end drain resist tools, dark won't compare but that also isn't really the role dark miasma plays anyhow( outside of the troller variant). It does become far easier to manage once you start dipping into IOs and Incarnate though. Picking up ageless ( ideally with the debuff resist) and a End redux styled alpha will go a long way. P2W temp powers can also really help offset this too which.. with the ease of gaining infamy via this build really no reason not to use them as required. I posted a build below to help guide in building if you would like to see how I built my own. This is a Corr version but the Def I spent equal time testing is built nearly the same save for ATOs. I posted the corr to show just how "minimal" you can get with def and res and debuff output while still being sturdy. The idea of this leans more to the strength of dark/dark.. which is the heavy tohit debuff...which allows you to build by cutting corners in the defense area and taking advantage of the -dmg debuffs from yourself and fluffy. This was tested and tweaked playing on countless AE farm runs (S/L), ambush missions vs foes like carnies, arachnos, malta and DA stuff solo at 4/8 (54) so its very sturdy. Darkest night was generally only used for pesky pew pew bosses that like to sit out on the edges of your carnage. Otherwise foes in "melee" range generally it was never required. The kill rate between def and corr wasn't too different but scourge via moonbeam "felt" very noticeable in kill time vs bosses (& Ebs on farms). In actual finishing of said tasks a def would often only be a few minutes behind. So big picture play any flavor they both work. Fearsome>torrent for stacking -tohit while using KD IO > tar patch > soul drain (with KD proc) > blackstar generally killed most foes.. and you are only left with injured bosses which you easily clean up with moonbeam and gloom/lifedrain. Cycle HT and TT for aoe procs for when blackstar is on cooldown ( assuming you are pulling constant foes or over aggro cap with use of pet) cycle RoP and demonic aura as needed. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1556;722;1444;HEX;| |78DA65544B4F135118BD773A052985524A5BA0BC5A5A4AA1AFF1B13424801279182| |2D19D92B10CD8886D3385445706137F8031511357C68D0B6364A571EB3B6E5D9B18| |4D740398F85898E8F831E7B36D329334E7CEF9CE3DDFF966EE74E1F2B4F7D1CCD68| |490BEA975BD5A5D9E2A9BE66665A36C362F158A46A96088FDAB997E915A69F9945E| |5A3356B2D3BA79717992B66DF4D66B939BABABA82C14F5EA255D7817CBE5F5ECBCA| |1578AA535DC2C95CD82615EF1FDAFAC1866F542B1E241B162182BFE639562816DC8| |9FC4DD1421473FAF22F8B25CE2A14B084D15C38F81F13430FD9544FDAA782E49265| |9DB8D9A12640C017B3B5DB6F68564A9B084DC9676AD8D6C5CE0DC2E4DB13935CF98| |063671CFA6F7C2462FF77E49166EF416EE67D0FA143CCA7DBFE6A7D01F78C278173| |D3D8A1BC83ED118FC5F51B985F7B6CCC1CF7B12D82EB1A7FDAF6A6394BD35F60A51| |D3566491AD41F4E9FD236CFF9B0921DA78EEB6087ABD26890F7AB78FF51D7BA875E| |C02FB7E32FE000E7C07FA29929F73FA3F82EBFCC0C879BA78B62ECE19BA8E39DE50| |AB00BFDBC0676842ACEDFEC4F805E8A79982FC6E839C71608EB31C070ECD0203A40| |DF3FCE107E895B3E8A24442F470DA9E149EDE10771CE213331C073F3C02CCF18979| |4B8E11EC5522BFE11A3F27ED5A5A07C6A8733F77EE1FC7B451C6006D19E4DE83497| |8C713C0915146CE32B28D2CC9A3E873956E637CBA625B98FE1D4182FD12A7A14BF2| |FE249FF614E74CF16C293E755B743BCA6F7CF4206A6339468D310FCC1CC11E2D454| |8B9AF113D2E3CF67318BF0FFFF404B4B97B98E30605CBF229CBEEA0768BB83C73F9| |309ED70955F0276B597D6AED4BDFBFA5B735EF6016D586AFD666762888948DCCAE8| |3D9AB338A3C832932B3402D8A74DFEA1A297F618ACC6D4C3737564B6E8D3932E51D| |8CE6600E3998C30EA6A5A3F6EF6305C3D41869AC9986F5768CD6AC4977D5F93B813| |A7FDE53E7F586F5D986F562C3FA1F9F8301FE| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|