Zect

The reason is you can't use footstomp when flying (technically you can, but you have to be basically glued to the ground to do so, which most players can't be bothered to do). Therefore, taking fly on inv/ss effectively means -1 defense powers (no hover). For the case of inv/ss specifically, if you are trying to balance mitigation (and I include debuff res in here) and dps to any degree, it's very hard to beat agility + ageless. (Also, Malewys builds are usually very sensible, but I react strongly to the idea of 5x Underwhelming Farce in boxing.)

Rad/SS

Let's take a look at my original assertion: Inflation is the broad and sustained rise in prices over time. The HC market does not generally have inflation, as I observed. However, that does not change the fact that flipping causes prices to increase, for - and this is the key part - at least some market participants some of the time. Items have two prices, a lowest sell price (ask) and highest buy price (bid). Let's say an item has an ask of 5000 and a buy of 3000. A marketeer who knows the bid and ask accurately can put in a bid for 3100, and when it fills, list it at 4900, for a profit of 1800 inf sans fees. A buyer previously need bid at least 3000 to have their order filled. Now it is 3100. They pay a higher cost. A seller previous need ask for at most 5000 to sell their item. Now it is 4900. They too pay a higher cost because they earn less from the same sale. (Notice that the simultaneity of the buy and sell transactions is irrelevant: they could be 10 years apart, and it wouldn't matter. Any market participant who interacts with the flipper's bid and ask pays the price.) This is where people start getting confused, because some might say, "I don't have to adjust my bid/ask to match the flipper; I can just wait them out." (This is your simultaneity argument.) However, the fact that it is possible for some players to take advantage of price volatility to avoid paying the costs listed above does not change the fact someone else may pay them. If, for example, I pass a law that says seatbelts are no longer mandatory in cars, some people will choose to install and wear seatbelts nonetheless, and be unaffected by this law. However, it would still be correct to say that my law will increase accident fatality rates, because it is the driving population as a whole we look at. "If the bid has gone up but the ask has fallen by the same amount, does it make sense to say that prices have increased". Ans: yes as a whole. We see that the buyer and seller in my example above are both paying a price. A different buyer who is willing to pay the ask (the buy-it-nao price in oldschool marketeer terminology) pays a lower ask. However, everyone else is paying more. If a minority pays less but most people pay more, it would still be correct to say that prices in general have increased. Let's say you aren't convinced by any of this. The clearest indication that flipping causes prices to be higher than they are otherwise (for at least some participants some of the time; I hate sounding like a broken record but this is necessary to avoid being nitpicked to death) is to look at the flipper's account, which consistently gets money without producing goods. The market does not create inf, the HC economy pays no interest, and there is no inflation, so where does that inf come from? It is paid by buyers and sellers in the market. Ergo, the market as a whole (but not necessarily any one player individually) is paying more than it otherwise would have to. Arguing otherwise violates every rule of accounting. Marketeers, since the era of live, have been very hesitant to acknowledge the fact that flipping takes money from the market without producing goods. The reason is probably that people, and this frequently includes marketeers themselves, conflate any mention of "higher price" with "inflation"; and the word "inflation" has a severely negative perception among non-economists, so marketeers have been keen to avoid it. Getting $ out of the market without producing goods also strikes some players as parasitic. However, as I previously noted, flipping is not necessarily a bad thing. Flippers likely do help the market function more efficiently by constantly keeping bids and asks listed. In other words, they provide liquidity, and are being compensated for that value they bring (even if it doesn't create goods). -- A trillionaire marketeer

Given ED-capped D/A/E and no 6th slot bonus (btw I extremely love it when people are so specific about the optimization parameters), buff procs. These at least take advantage of the aura's ability to roll against multiple foes at once to cheat the PPM formula. Offensive procs have shit procrate so do not confer significant benefit. That said, you will occasionally see things like glad fury and achilles' in damage procs if they cannot be fit anywhere else, because -res is damage with more steps, and damage is king in the modern coh meta.

These days it sees most of its use in hami raids. Everywhere else, the critters don't do enough damage or stay alive long enough for it to be worth anything.

This build is pretty good. This is literally the first time I have seen an invuln tanker advice thread not plagued by terribly slot-inefficient builds with very questionable design choices, or worse, builds with invulnerability toggled to 10 and ageless plus an FF proc in kick toggled on. The main thing this build lacks is perma-dull pain, and I also prefer better hasten uptime, but that's me. I have only 1 suggestion. Invuln has a lot of def, so you can build around having 2 stacks of ATIO1 +res proc, which you will consistently have after the first few seconds of combat when the proc is slotted in your filler attack (it's a 6ppm proc, the rates are very high even in a power that's shit for procs otherwise). There is no need to cap with 1 stack of +res proc considering you have 2 mit layers backed up by capped maxhp. So my suggestion is to trim back to 74-76% EN res, and then you can invest more in other areas.

The Camel build is definitely the best one of the ones posted. Beats the JJDraken one in maxhp and def, moderately behind in res, while featuring almost twice the rech and superior buff, debuff, supportive and damage output. It runs gloom moonbeam lifedrain, allowing it to increase dps and self-heal while cutting 1 attack power (and save a lot of slots in the process). There are optimizations to be made, like going 6x cloud senses in fluffy instead of 4x basilisks + 4x eradications. The best part of fluffy is the -tohit aura, as any master illusionist worth her salt will tell you in-between making PI radio teams cry; but overall it is very competently made. Note that it is an endgame (incarnate) build because it will not function without ageless core, but it should not be too hard to adapt it for leveling, before respecing into the final build at 50. You can drop fighting and pick up dark blast, for example (dropping leadership is not recommended because leveling teams always struggle to hit). The reason why JJDraken is not a fan of your build is because conventional wisdom on d3 is not to over-invest in defense. After all, you already debuff enemies tohit, so a heavy investment in defense is overkill. The approach of building res and maybe maxhp instead has merit, but maybe do so in a more slot-efficient way (3x freebird, just lmao). Dark vs soul mastery Dark: Opp gloom (stacks with other stuns you may take) Soul transfer (useful in 4*) Soul: Power boost Do not underestimate power boost. It boosts all your tohit debuffs, including the ones in your dark blasts. It boosts your heals considerably; a powerboosted twilight grasp can easily turn around a bad situation. It even boosts def from toggles, though only when the power boost effect is active. The version in soul also has extremely high uptime, potentially almost 50% on a permahasten+ build. Soul drain gives more potential damage buff than spirit drain (Same bonus per target, but 10 targets vs 5. They have the same uptime ratio). However from my experience it is much, much easier to saturate spirit drain than soul drain and spirit drain works even on corpses. How many melee powers do you have? You can improve your movement and positioning so that when you go into range to use your powers, only a few critters are in range to hit you. Remember that TT immobilizes, so critters cannot crowd around you. By the time you move in, they are all glued to the floor and debuffed into the 9th circle of hell, which will help you avoid getting grouped up on. So melee def is pointless. (In general well-played ranged toons do not need melee def. This is why you will see even kins that only have ranged def.) Rech/slows in tar patch are cute but remember that tar patch does movement slow not recharge reduction (which is never enhanceable, even if it was present) and TT immobilizes. So there is little point in the slow because TT will stop critters from moving and you can just go with commons (boost to +5). Yes, putting ATIO2 +end proc in an aoe will proc it like mad. Buff procs are mad overpowered in aoes. It's why toe +end in rad therapy, or FF + rech in foot stop, are so imbalanced. Exploit ruthlessly. Note that dark consumption is extremely weak. It has 3x the base rech, 360s, than the version in DM. Grass grows faster than this thing recharges. Even blaster nukes only have 145s base rech. Dark consumption will not significantly impact your endurance situation however you slot it so you should avoid heavily investing in it.

Medicine generally, because it has higher availability. Unleash is too slow (when you need HP you tend to need it now) and has too much downtime: it is still only available once every 2 mins at +400% rech. Aid self is actually more hps than healing flames if you spam it (17.0% heal every 24.5s, vs 21.7% heal every 40.9s - unenhanced numbers). But the catch is it's interruptible, so it's harder to kite while healing like melee toons do when forced onto the defensive and you have to beware of dots; and it's a very long animation, so using it will tank your dps. All good shield builds are softcapped without shadowmeld anyway, so you are unlikely to be interrupted. Shadowmeld mainly has value as an additional buffer against high tohit enemies or heavy incoming -def debuff. The reality is more nuanced. A power transfer proc is about +3.35 hps (doesn't scale with maxhp). Panacea on scrappers is slightly weaker at +3.29 hps (ditto). Every 100% of regeneration is about +9.17 hps.* Aid self slotted for heal at 95% ED without field medic is about +21.0 hps. It takes a significant investment to match or beat aid self, especially considering panaceas and numinas are default on most builds. My shield scraps that don't build for passive hps still get 20 hps. The real advantages of the hps procs and regen over aid self are that they do not cost animation time (= no dps loss), are passive (= less human error) and do not cost power slots (= more investment in epics, +def all powers). Even when you do match/beat aid self in terms of hps, this is a pure mathematical analysis that only works out if incoming damage is consistent and even. In real combat conditions against challenging foes (the situation where heals actually matter), incoming damage is spiky and unpredictable. If you are soloing a +3 AV and it lands 2 big hits in short succession that chop off 70% of the green bar, you do not necessarily have the leeway to hang out and wait for procs or regen to kick in. That might mean risking a death resulting in encounter reset. Analysis of risk must consider not only the likelihood of adverse events, but also when those adverse events are likely to happen**. Taking aid self means paying extra for the insurance that you will have hps when you need it most and when its value is highest. * this does scale with maxhp. I have assumed 2200hp, which is at the high end of what accoladed shield scraps will achieve without owts or other buffs active. The AT cap is 2409. ** this is the reason why junk bonds are almost never worth it in your portfolio despite the higher yield, because they tend to be correlated with stocks and crash at the same time stocks do. Why buy bonds that don't do the job bonds are supposed to do, which is reduce volatility and diversify risk? Just buy stocks if you want yield and don't mislead yourself about the amount of risk you're taking. Scrapper shield only has ~70% DDR with 2x AD, so many shield builds are pigeonholed into ageless radial (the other bonuses are generally a good deal for them too). You can keep a rebirth around for when you're not fighting -def critters though. Generally agreed, but who knows? Some people still put stock in being able to do things no insps no temps style, even though I gave it up as suboptimal long ago.

Which is to slot your shield wall +5 res unique. I want to talk about 2 things now that OP changed their epic. Firstly, shadow meld has a very long animation lock at 3.168s. You can move (i.e. you are not rooted) while using it, but attacks will only queue and not execute until it is done animating. Using it in the middle of combat is a dps loss. You usually want to pop it when you are moving in-between spawns, but hold off on refreshing it in-combat unless necessary. This adds a fun element of active play to your more passive 2ndary. Secondly, epic snipes are good but endurance-costly. Moonbeam for example has a base cost of almost 18 end. Your build will not be eps stable with only net +2 eps (since you are a leadership build) and no panacea proc. That's okay however because moonbeam only becomes available at endgame and you will have access to incarnate end management tools. It just means you're more pushed towards taking musc radial (instead of core) for alpha and maybe ageless radial instead of barrier for destiny. Experiment and adjust as necessary based on the severity of end issues you experience.

You can try blowing up teammates with the crystals (they stun, to help you kill your team) and then blowing up the dead teammates with fallout. PvPvE baby!

Ideal rotation is hack disembowel hack headsplitter, requiring +304% rech in hack (replace a hack or disembowel with epic snipe when available). Low rech builds, especially you with no haste and no rech boost from your armor, can mix in parries e.g. hack disembowel parry hack headsplitter, or even hack disembowel hack (small gap) headsplitter depending on rech and procs. Most BS builds fit double -res procs in the single target rotation (achilles in hack or disembowel, gladiator's fury in headsplitter). Your problems with endurance drain are because you have shit energy def. Energy def is really hard to get on melee toons. Slot EN def and start dodging them elec attacks. Try 3x eradications in your aoes (boost to +5, it's a level 30 set so it has weak enhancement values), 3-4x reactive armor in your res toggles No steadfast +3% def to all - also gives res enhancement Combat jumping 3 slotted and heightened senses 1 slotted. Classic case of throwing away pounds to chase pennies 6x makos. Usually slotting positional def (melee, ranged, aoe) def on a typed defense (fire, cold, energy, etc) toon like your WP is a mistake. Positional def bonuses only give half the value in typed def, see. But 1 set of 6x mako's in a ST attack is not bad because EN def is so rare it sometimes is worth it even at half value, and you get SL res and a damage proc to boot. 5-6x winter's bite or 3x thunderstrike muled in an epic blast, 5x manticore's in an epic snipe, 4x basilisk's in an epic hold are also potential options depending on what epic you're willing to go with. Most builds don't need to go that far though. Panacea can go in health, perf shifter/ptransfer can go in stamina respectively to save a slot each Hack and parry are attacks. Slot them like attacks. All the strongest set bonuses come from attack IO sets, so it is rarely worth it to slot them as anything else. You can take 1 slot in parry to use as an lotg mule though. 3x impervium armor for psi def is useless, you will never accumulate enough psi def to be worth it. Aegis, reactive armor and unbreakable guards are the way to go. Kismet is permanently on if you put it in a toggle instead of in parry Good epics, assuming you have no strong ties to energy: Soul - moonbeam (snipe) and shadowmeld (+def all, short recharge). Mu - zapp (snipe) and ball lightning. Notably the only pick that lets you get both a snipe and an epic taoe for those who dislike melee cones. Psi - psi lance (snipe) and harmonic mind (regen, recov, endrdx). Ice - frozen spear (snipe) Snipes are overpowered, and one of many reasons scrappers are so high on ST damage compared to blasters. When you are in combat, snipes do less damage but are uninterruptible, becoming just another epic blast, albeit an extremely powerful one. Snipes gain bonus damage based on your +tohit buff so they gain damage from your kismet and tactics.

Against pure damage, and in the absence of external buffs, it is generally better to have 1 kind of mit (either def or res) capped rather than to have both halfway capped. The reason is mitigation in this game shows increasing, not diminishing, returns - against all principles of game balance and common sense. Going from 0% to 10% def is barely any difference. Go from 35% to 45% and you can afk in mobs. Brutes are not good at building for resists, so focus on def unless you are a res set or you are within easy reach of the res hardcap. Invuln for example will always hardcap SL res. I can tell you have energy drain toggled to the max and invincibility at 1, so you can't compare these builds anyway.

Tick 'show enhancement relative levels' (and below it is also your 'show damage per activation'). They are always taken into account in ED calculations and in damage, res etc. numbers, even if the +5 signs do not show. This back and forth makes me realize how so much of build design skills are taken for granted by veteran builders. Basics such as animation time and DPA, the PPM system and what affects procrate, how to calculate recharge time under the effect of varying recharge buffs, are probably already a lot to grasp for the average player. Then you get all the quirks of mids' and its interface, like what it does and does not calculate accurately. What does and does not stack from the same caster, and whether it stacks from a pseudopet. Weird and unexpected interactions (if I slot panacea chance for +HP/end in nature's lifegiving spores and put the patch under a teammate, who gets the proc?). Things like the heatloss-burnout interaction, 4* infiltration aggro radius, etc. Not even I know everything at the bottom of the iceberg.

Options > config > effects & maths Chance of damage: select 'average' View > tick 'show damage per activation'

Fightingless, 100% slow res, near permahasten, alpha only, 1 stack hardcap: 1.mbd Unbreakable guard is in static shield. If you need to unslot the adj targetings, e.g. because your 2ndary has feint instead of BU or you want gaussian's in the 6th slot, there are a couple ways to make up the missing res. You can replace some unbreakable guards with 4x titanium coatings for the SL res and split up ATIO2 into two sets of 3x for the EN res, for example. You can do the prestige sprint trick (all 4 prestige sprints plus normal sprint accept 2x celerity for 2.25 SL res).