Zect

1) Check what is toggled on. Parry, barrier, or elude may be toggled on by mistake. 2) There are niche circumstances in which significantly more than the softcap or i-cap are beneficial. Fighting eyeballs, for example. Whether it is worth it depends on how that defense was achieved. (The more I play the more I feel that if you want more survivability on SR that is tohit agnostic, build for res.) 3) It may just be a stunt; sometimes people build for X in mids just to show they can, with no assurance that X actually provides a worthwhile return on investment. It's easy to get insane amounts of any one stat if you are willing to devote the entire build to it.

This build is pretty decent. It has all the essentials, a procced-out blind, a good amount of rech and all key powers taken. It even takes temporal selection - how thoughtful! There are some efficiencies to be found, some things are a matter of opinion (I think energy font is trash unless you have another stun to stack with it) and I would personally slot chrono shift for heal (it's a massive heal, the endurance part only lasts 30s) but at a glance nothing jumps out to me as questionable. There aren't a whole lot of different ways to build time, but it's nice to see something that's competently constructed. Here are some things for you to consider. Firstly, think about group invis over supe invis. There aren't a whole lot of situations in pve where supe makes a noticeable difference - I think you can still sneak into the bunker in keyes with it, and it does give very slightly more unsupressed def, otherwise I struggle to recall any examples. Taking group invis over supe invis saves a lot of end over its duration and being able to stealth teammates has a variety of uses. Secondly, try the purple build up proc in PA, if you can spare a slot. Yes, it works on them. You can't buff PA, but the PA's can buff themselves. Thirdly, consider a procbombed energy torrent. Try something like, 4 damage procs, ragnarok D and D/E (boosted +5). Illusion troller aoe is never going to be very good, but a 300 damage aoe attack is always nice to have. You can make up the lost rech with another set of basilisks in distortion field, and the def allows you to pull a slot of botz which lets you get your beloved energy font proc back in it, too; I would even argue you don't need botzs as the whole point of being ill/ is not to have to get hit. Finally, while time doesn't have the HPS of the heavyweight healing sets like kin, dark, elecaff etc, its heal does provide slow resistance. Power boost also boosts heal. You can power boost + temporal healing or even power boost + chronoshift for a significant burst of healing, a technique emps will be familiar with.

Both are defense-based sets backed up by minor resists and offensive capacity. Shield is positional with no weakness, EA is typed with a slight neg and significant psi weakness. This is a mild annoyance because EN def is the rarest def on armored AT's - there are few slot-efficient sources easily available to them. Shield has a far less noticeable problem vs psi since most (but not all, and I haven't gone back and checked since they did the typed defense overhaul) psi attacks have a vector. EA is a bit rougher in the 40-50 contact/radio range where there are a lot of arachnos (tarantula queens) and carnies, which incidentally also resist psi melee heavily. Shield has better DDR, slightly better resists plus +maxHP, debuffs dmg of enemies in melee, a modern (recharge immune with mild crash) T9, and complete mez prot. EA has drain and slow resist, a click heal that also gives regen, debuffs rech of enemies in melee, a classic (crashing) T9, and lacks fear/confuse prot. Hence, shield natively provides only strong mitigation, EA has a mixture of slightly weaker mitigation with some sustain and a broader debuff resist spectrum. I generally find that EA has the smoother leveling experience regardless of AT - while shield is very strong when fully kitted out, you will generally struggle to run all its toggles plus fighting in the midgame, conversely EA shrugs off the worst of a lot of groups such as penny yin freakshow. Shield and EA both gain offensive stats in melee with enemies: +dmg for shield and +rech for EA. +rech increases availability of both offensive and defensive clicks, but varying rech is harder to build around - for example you can't necessarily rely on it to make a specific attack chain work. Shield gets a very powerful teleport attack (that accepts pbaoe sets) while EA gets endredux and endurance restoration that makes the pre-set IO life a lot easier. Shield and EA both offer some utility - shield buffs ally +def (it's a lot stronger than maneuvers but in a smaller area) while EA has stealth. Ultimately both are very good. Shield will provide an experience closer to your WP where you toggle up and go, with the caveat that it has worse endurance management. I really prefer EA on stalkers over brutes, especially since the +rech power on stalkers is a flat +20%. There's a reason it is the #1 stalker set.

To be eligible for a 4* you need to be able to work as a team. I find CoH players as a whole are very bad at this, because the game is so easy it doesn't ask for cooperation, and historically both the most lucrative activities and epeen-stroking activities have been solo stuff - marketing, AE farming, and things like no insps no temps soloing of TF's/AV's (which are even designated team content). So it breeds inflated egos with the whole "I don't need you, you're not the master of me, I won't let anyone tell me what to do, I can't take any criticism" attitude. If you can generally follow orders, and as long as your build plays to its expected strengths and isn't something completely stupid like a cold corr skipping the shields, you will be welcome regardless of AT. There isn't a long line of people waiting to do 4* (the rewards are lackluster and not comparable to farming unless you speed it at least somewhat) so most pugs will just be happy to fill the group.

Before I explain the build I want to reiterate the importance of recognizing whether you should slot typed or positional defense. Typed defense is typically a lot more slot-efficient. For example, 3x eradications offers 3.13% typed EN def. Usually, 3.13 to 3.75% positional def is a 5-6 piece bonus (see for example 6x numina's or 6x performance shifter). The downside of typed is that typed defense less often comes bundled with rech. But you (OP) do not seem to be pursuing a high rech build, so that's alright. There are some cases where specific sets may serve for both typed and positional defense. For example, if you have 3x unbreakable guard for the EN res, an additional 1 slot for ~1.5% ish SL def is still a pretty good deal. That's still more Defense Per Added Slot (DPAS) than kincombat. However, in general avoid things such as mako and tod on a typed defense armor unless you really know what you are doing. Next, you mention the excess amount of SL res, and it's good that you have noticed this and are trying to react to it. Endgame invulns typically slot resist physical and do not toggle on tough, using it only as a gladiator's armor mule because they still cap SL res without it. This effectively allows them to use their high SL res to run 1 less armor toggle than other tankers, a gain of ~0.2% EPS. Which is almost 12% recovery, which is almost the amount that phys perfection gives you (12.5%). This concept of under-investing in a stat you have excess of (SL res) in order to effect a gain (recovery) elsewhere is known as trading-out. * * * Next, we need to talk build goals. Since I do not know your incarnate strategy, playstyle nor target content, that makes it impossible to make effective recommendations. Instead, what I will present is a basic platform that nevertheless offers robust survivability, which you can upgrade with your choice of power pools, epic pool, and incarnate powers. I will also discuss some ways in which my proposed build deviates from more optimal slotting techniques, so that you can upgrade later in your career when you can afford more stuff. My proposed build goals are: 40% def to all but psitox with 1 enemy in range perma 70% res to all but psitox 1 with 1 stack of might of the tanker ATIO proc "Why not 45% def?" you ask. "And where's the perma-dull pain?" These are not hard to achieve, but without knowing how (or even if) resources such as incarnates and power pools are to be spent we cannot state the best means of achieving them. 40% def still blocks 90% of incoming dps and will be softcapped at 4 enemies in melee, which will serve OP well until they can arrive at a decision. The remaining power choices and slots are yours to spend. This has no incarnates, no epic, and no IO's more expensive than 10 million apiece. The overwhelming majority are <5 M, notable exceptions being the shield walls (7-10 M), lotgs (6), gladiator's armor +3 def (8-10), and tanker ATIO's - might of the tanker and gauntleted fist - depending on market conditions. You will put in bids at 8.1 million for the tanker ATIOs. After you reach level 50, enhancement catalysts will start to drop as loot for you, up to 1 per toon per day. These let you turn the ATIOs into their superior versions. In the enhancement window in-game, click on the enhancement. The catalyst, if you have any, appears in the top left of the screen. Click on it and the ATIO is upgraded. I want to draw your attention to several features and potential upgrades: This build uses cross punch. Even though it is not a combo builder, it allows us to fit eradications which is important because Stj's 2nd aoe attack, unusually, takes taoe instead of pbaoe sets. Because of the passive synergy bonus from boxing, it actually does good damage as a single target attack and is worth taking in its own right. My assessment is that a 3rd filler attack may serve you well because you are a low rech build and crushing uppercut has an unusually long rech. It can be dropped if you later find you do not use it (in that case my suggestion for making up the EN def is to mule some thunderstrikes in an epic blast). Crushing Uppercut, unusually for a strong melee attack, accepts hold sets. Therefore, it can potentially fit a 2nd absorb proc from superior entomb, the winter set. Absorb procs such as these are extremely powerful on a tanker that has both strong def and res but low sustain, such as invuln. If you are able to get more rech you may consider swapping the locations of might of the tanker and gauntleted fist, and putting an entomb proc in the 6th slot of crushing uppercut. Normally, high-end invuln builds split up their gauntleted fist set into two sets of 3x, getting the 6% EN res bonus twice. (The remaining slots are often filled with damage procs, or left empty if the attack does not need further enhancement.) In your case I have assembled it as a single set of 6x because without winter sets you have much less access to FC res and therefore benefit from the 6th piece bonus. Splitting it up again is an option if you want to upgrade resistances in future. This build is softcapped at 4 enemies in melee. The most immediate upgrade will be to be softcapped with just 1 in melee range, and to achieve perma-dull pain which requires +200% rech enhancement in dull pain. There are a few options to achieve this; for example, barrier core epiphany in the destiny slot is perma-5% def and res to all, and also lets your protect teammates. Agility core and a defense pool power (such as hover or maneuvers) will also achieve this. If you add ageless on top of that it will make dull pain almost permanent as long as you always remember to press them both together on a 2 minute cycle. Note that I have not included haste above, though you may take it if you like. My assessment is that if you take haste it should be with a specific goal in mind - making a certain power permanent or enabling a specific attack chain. This in turn usually requires that hasten itself be permanent, otherwise its downtime is longer than mids displays, and that downtime in turn lengthens the rech of the other power. As a low-rech build that is nowhere near permahasten, you will likely gain more slot-efficiency from taking +def powers instead. I encourage you to further explore the invention system yourself and and experiment with different incarnate powers and builds based on your play experience. Tanker (Invulnerability - Street Justice).mbd

You shouldn't build for melee defense unless you are making some kind of exotic build. Invuln is a typed defense set, so you should prioritize typed defense (smashing, lethal, energy etc.) unless you really know what you are doing. Invuln with 1 target in melee, weave, and either CJ or hover is already at 33% def to all. It's not too hard to softcap from there. Even non-superior blistering colds are over 20 million apiece. If you want to take them at all, catalyze them and make them superior (catalysts are <1M each). Otherwise, don't take them in the first place and slot kinetic combats instead. I don't have time to do a comprehensive build teardown at present, and I don't know how much of this build is your work. However, in the past whenever I have seen builds labelled infinitum, they are generally terrible so I would suggest seeking out a more reputable source (the best builds are often not passed around on the forums and generally only distributed privately in discords). What will help people help you is to give a comprehensive account of your build goals. For example, what is your incarnate strategy (some people don't want their defense to come from the alpha slot for example), are you open to changing pools/epic powers, what content you want to do with this, etc. Even something like "I haven't decided what incarnates I want to use and would like to keep my options as open as possible" is helpful to a knowledgable builder.

The portion of hide that does not suppress and always remains active is only equivalent to CJ, so it is usually not heavily slotted. It can carry the def uniques that require the power to be active to work, such as kismet and reactive defenses. These deactivate if you lose access to the power they are in when exemping so it can help to have them in an early power, and hide is available at level 1. Almost every EA stalker will have 16% def to all since slotted Weave is about 6%, slotted CJ or hover 2-3%, hide 2%, both uniques 6% = 16% minimum. Energy drain gives +def all too, but the amount is very small - 1% to 7% depending on slotting and # of enemies hit, I wouldn't count on it giving more than 4% even if you take and slot it heavily which I generally do not recommend. You can take CJ or hover, whichever you did not earlier (2-3%). You can take maneuvers (close to 4% when ED capped). If you took CJ, hover, maneuvers weave you lose access to hasten which excludes you from the top DPS builds. Barrier core epiphany is perma-5% def to all. A defense amp (the 8 hour inspiration as I like to call it) is 5% def to all. These are the boosts I generally consider practical. If we take and unrealistically assume max values for all the above that is +41% def to all. 6x apoc in moonbeam will cap you to psi. A defense alpha may put you closer to the cap. Both melee and support hybrid provide +def all, but they are not permanent. At this point we are taking severe hits to dps by not taking an offensive alpha and offensive hybrid. In practice, all this would be a huge waste since you would be significantly overcapped to other damage, wasting the power of your other defense toggles. A more realistic figure is possibly the low to mid-30's and most high-end stalker builds will only be in the low 20's to high teens. On the more practical side of solutions, Shadowmeld from soul epic does provide +def all, and it comes with access to moonbeam which is never a weak option. It is not permanent but it is up often enough to function as an alpha absorber. This works just long enough for you to apply the real stalker solution to a defense hole, shank the enemies before they shoot you.

Haha, no such thing. Kerrigan: Tell me about your work. Abathur: Look at flesh, see only potential. Strands, sequences, twisting, separating, joining. See how it could be better. Eat flesh, splinter bone. Inside me, can touch it. Weave it. Spin it. Make it great. Kerrigan: But not perfect? Abathur: Never perfect. Perfection goal that changes. Never stops moving. Can chase, cannot catch. There's also a world of possibility if you want to look beyond optimizing meta builds and start considering unconventional or very specialized build goals.

I'm pleasantly surprised; this is actually a very reasonable suggestion. A lot of the sets you discuss are from the earliest implementation of the IO system (predating even the addition of purples), back when the developers may not have figured out what players are likely to pursue and were possibly somewhat conservative in chosing what set bonuses to offer (which is the smart thing to do; release underpowered, buff later). Either increasing their level ceiling or revamping the set bonuses, or both, seem plausible solutions. Personally, I wouldn't prefer extending their levels all the way to 50; I think we have an excess of high-level enhancements (purples, pvpIOs and the various flavors of hami-Os) and it would be nice to see more mid-level sets that present a choice of attractive set bonuses at the cost of lower enhancement value. Trade-offs = good. Eradication, cloud senses and basilisks are all good examples of such a concept well done. So if their ceiling is to be heightened I would say that 30 seems a good place to stop in addition to buffing their set bonuses. However, careful attention needs to be paid to enhancing build diversity and refreshing the stale meta. The set bonuses should not provide significant amounts of: Def Res Rech Acc And other such bonuses that current mainstream builds pursue, or that support meta playstyles (such as KB2KD). I think this is an exciting opportunity to implement something completely new instead. For example, uncommon set bonuses like +range and +mez duration, but in huge amounts that make them really significant to non-meta builds. Or a set "bonus" at 2x that is actually a malus such as -10% rech, but compensated by a different, extremely powerful (stronger even than purple) or unique bonus at 3x, forcing a trade-off. Again, trade-offs = good. We may even consider never-before-seen bonuses. Whatever those may be, I leave it to game designers to figure out.

Yes. When used in an aoe, they can only fire once per power activation (regardless of number of targets hit). But when slotted in multiple autopowers, each power rolls to fire the proc independently (this used not to be the case for power transfer, but it was changed at some point), and they can all fire simultaneously for a cloud of green numbers above your head. Oddly satisfying. Are they effective? PShifter is a well-characterized proc so I will not discuss that. Power transfer is a 3 PPM proc and heals 5% of your base HP. This means that when slotted in an autopower it will fire once every 20s on average, or 15% base HP per minute on average. Player regeneration is 5% of max hp every 12s, or 25% max HP per minute (fun fact, +regen buffs do not increase the tick size, they work by increasing the frequency). So if you had a single Ptransfer proc slotted, and only tanker base HP with no buffs, you would be getting 15% + 25% = 40% of your max HP per minute. This is equivalent to +60% regeneration (!), making it stronger than Panacea and any of the regeneration uniques by far. You are WP so you will always have more than base HP, making regeneration's disadvantage less severe, since regen does scale with max HP but the PTransfer proc does not. However, even at the tanker hardcap of 3534 HP the PTransfer proc is still stronger than any of the regen uniques (equivalent to about +31.8% regen). But is it effective effective? Well, I think phys perfection is not a strong pick for a WP anyway - it's not as though you lack passive healing (maybe if it makes the difference between being eps stable and not). However epics tend to be a playstyle or concept related choice and I do understand the appeal of being surrounded by many floating numbers. So my answer is that it is not super optimal, but it's not like it will ruin your retirement, so carry on.

Stuffing tanker attacks full of procs isn't rocket science - just mouseover the various sets in mids, and see which have chance for ___ damage. But making a functional and effective procbombing build also requires knowing how to source acc, endrdx, rech (especially rech) and other needed stats without enhancements in the actual attacks themselves. Further, procbombing builds gobble blue at a rate that's hard to believe until you've played one yourself. Heavy procbombers are one of very few builds capable of spending all the end from ageless core epiphany. This build (not by me; I do not hand out builds as a matter of principle) demonstrates some key concepts of procbombing on tanks. See the first section, "proc rocks", about a granite stone/SS specifically. I draw your attention to: The use of SS to provide needed tohit; this allows taking musculature (adding even more dps) instead of an accuracy alpha. Without Rage, procbombers often need an alpha that provides acc, such as nerve or vigor, or some other non-enhancement source of acc such as focused acc. This is why SS is in a class of its own when it comes to offensive power. The use of FF procs and set-muling to provide rech and slow resist; see eg. how the frankenslotted winter sets provide both enhancement value and slow res. See also the location of the tanker ATIO sets. They are put in the one power that is not good for procbombing (damage aura). It is normal that even on a procbombing set you have one or two powers slotted "normally" as the bonuses are too strong to pass up. The use of ageless core to provide recovery. This is necessary if you are not playing an armor set with very strong endo management tools such as rad, elec etc or taking an endo management alpha such as Vigor. The mixture of frankenslotting and procs in various attacks, in order to provide optimal damage and enhancement value. This is one of few valid use cases for slotting 3x purple sets because a +5 purple dam/end still outdamages a non-purple damage proc on many attacks, and slotting proc + dam + dam/end gives valuable resists and enhancement value (endrdx!). The use of epic blasts and aoes to provide additional offensive firepower. Procbombing builds typically have low rech in the procced main attacks. This means more attacks must be fielded in order to spend all animation time. If you have to sit there waiting for stuff to recharge, that cuts into your dps gains. I don't agree with all the choices made but overall, it is a very competently designed build. The key concept being illustrated is understanding that granite provides a huge amount of mitigation which thus allows us to under-invest in mits and invest in dps instead. (Non-granite tankers can do the same thing, just to a lesser extreme.) This build invests almost nothing in defense except a few highly efficient pieces such as the res/def uniques and still has 90% res to all and 45% def to all except psi. Makes you wonder what those turtle-tank builders are doing when they throw away all dps to invest in turtling yet fail to achieve the same numbers, eh?

I'm going to say what I always say in these types of threads. You ready? Here it is: Define "best". With that said, here's a possible analysis based on what seems to be your unspoken assumption that time is good for your purposes. There are a few reasons why time is usually considered strong as a 2ndary. 1) Its DPS support power is of the self-buff type (+rech) which makes it easy to build around and exploit, compared to enemy debuffs (weakened by purple patch) or damage auras (requires close range). 2) Its strong melee attack, future pain, does decent DPA (97, above average) while offering access to an unusual damtype for diversification purposes. It also has a fairly standard power layout (always valuable for a set like AR that is very biased in favor of taoes in terms of power type), 1 more power that can fit resistance uniques, access to hold sets for set-muling purposes, and a pretty stupid amount of slow res. All told, a munchkin's wet dream. Please nerf it. Rad and plant both have access to holds and a fairly standard power layout. However, rad's DPS support is also of the self-buff type, while plant's is a debuff (-regen). In fact, rad has 2 powers that give +rech - you get 20% from metabolic and then another varying amount from beta decay (only when foes in range). And while rad does have some melee and pbaoe attacks, they're pretty shit - I don't always take them myself if the primary has enough aoes of its own. Skipping them is actually not that bad for AR, which is a top 3 set or close to it. So if you don't intend to melee a lot because you'd rather stay at range and use your cones, and prefer sets that offer DPS support through self-buffs, rad seems to be the set that better fits your objectives after time.

Reading this post reminds me of the fact that I have received some PM's asking me "what's the best/most meta X" (usually couched in "what would you play if..." language). I've started refraining from replying to them because I think it's unhelpful to do so. I want to help people learn to think for themselves, not do their thinking for them or foist my preferences and biases on them. If I answer, how do they know I'm telling the truth? (It's a PM, so it's not like someone else will come and contradict me.) How do they know my knowledge is accurate or up to date? One even, I kid you not, calls me a "genius". I am extremely uncomfortable with this fawning tone. There's a reason I post from a throwaway account and abstain from avatars and signatures and all that stuff forumites use to build a brand around themselves. I am happiest if you consider me an anonymous nobody. I reject all assumed authority and want you to evaluate anything I write solely on its own merits - as you should do with anything on the forums regardless of the poster's "reputation" or clout. But perhaps this thread can be helpful to such posters. If I receive any inquiries on what's the most meta blaster, I'll be sure to redirect them here.

Proposing correct solutions to problems requires an accurate identification and statement of the problem in the first place. Otherwise, you're just changing things for the sake of change at best; and making a bad solution worse at worst. Barely any posts in this thread have attempted to achieve this, with most just tossing out wishful thinking "Christmas lists" of buffs with no supporting rationale or data given. Here's a list of real problems that regen in its current form suffers, instead of vague whines about it being "not strong enough" (how exactly?). 1. Lack of slow resist (and possibly -end/-recovery resist too) Every set without a substantial amount of def (no, mog doesn't count - that's the short duration anti-alpha tool) that is dependent on click heals needs this; otherwise, unlike +def sets whose mitigation double-dips as debuff resistance, slows inflict a double whammy of lost offensive and defensive power. Elec has this; fire has this; rad has this; even bio has this; so regen must have this. 20-30% in QR should do the trick. 2. Lack of offensive (not defensive) buff. Because regen spends animation time healing, it effectively has a built in dps loss and needs an offensive buff to compensate. Once upon a time I suspect quick recovery may have been intended to serve this purpose, but years of power creep has led to other sets getting progressively more powerful endo management tools. I already wrote this in the previous regen whineposting thread, but while the lazy solution would be to slap a rech buff on QR or something, I personally hope for something more unique and less meta-friendly. Maybe a mini-build up upon using reconstruction? 3. Poor availability of clicks relative to encounter frequency Consider the following hypothetical click powers: 30s duration, 90s cooldown 300s duration, 900s cooldown Are they equal? Superficially, they might be, since they have the same uptime ratio (about 33%). However, in practice, the first is actually going to be a great deal stronger than the second. This is because encounters in coh typically last some 30-60 seconds including travel time to the next spawn. With the first power, assuming ED-capped rech, you get to use it nearly every spawn or so. But with the second power, you get to enjoy it for 5 minutes and then there's 10 minutes where you're buck naked. It's extremely feast-or-famine. This is a subtle but serious issue with regen, independent from the uptime ratio of the powers (what % of time they are active). I think it stems from the fact that regen originates from a time when the game was much slower and encounter frequency lower. Paragon, and almost certainly Homecoming team, are aware of this because you can see it in the design of the newer sets. Consider Bio: Ablative carapace: 90s rech DNA siphon: 90s rech Parasitic aura: 45s duration, 270s rech Observe how, even with just SO levels of recharge, you can use ablative (the primary EHP booster) and DNA siphon (the primary sustain heal) nearly every spawn, or alternate them that one is available per spawn, at 45s rech. Parasitic, the more powerful T9, would be available every (edit:) two minutes and change - perhaps saved up for a more difficult encounter where necessary. Now compare regen: Reconstruction: 60s Instant healing: 90s duration, 650s (!!) rech Mog: 15s duration, 240s (!!!) rech This means that IH and mog are available, at SO level, at best once every five and two minutes respectively, resulting in long periods during which the set has less recourse to incoming damage. (I find the poor availability of mog in particular very egregious because it seems clearly designed as an anti-alpha tool.) This also makes regen feel less active and less interesting to play. And the reason their cooldowns are so ridiculously long might, ironically, be because the powers are too strong when active. Mog really doesn't need to give 70% res or whatever it is unenhanced on top i-capped defense. And IH would still be plenty strong at 300% to 500% ish regen. The solution here is to massively weaken both IH and mog, but substantially increase the frequency at which they are available, and possibly also tweak their uptime ratio slightly. My recommendation is that an SO regen should be able to enter every encounter with 2 major clicks (excluding DP), but with these powers significantly weakened from their existing form. 4. What I like to call the "scaling heals problem" If you look at all sets with strong healing, they typically scale with # of enemies hit. Dark regen, RTTC, rad therapy, DNA siphon, parasitic etc. all work this way. And while it has never been stated in a design document or something, I hypothesize the reason is because Paragon (and perhaps Homecoming team - though I haven't seen enough of their work to be certain) consider that the amount of healing necessary to withstand full-team spawns would be overpowered for single-target fights. Otherwise, the amount of DPS a single AV would have to do to threaten a regen would in turn overwhelm other sets without click sustain. So what we need is for some of regen's tools reworked such that they scale with the number of foes engaged. They should be substantially weaker than they currently are against a single enemy, but substantially stronger against x8 spawns. This would effectively allow regen to "scale up" its healing power when encountering large spawns, without fear of it being overpowered for single or small encounters. --- And while you're digesting my incredibly well-reasoned post that fixes every issue with regen without causing power creep, here are three commonly proposed changes that are terrible ideas and should not be implemented: Adding 95% -regen resist - Usually when people suggest -regen resist, they what they really mean is SR-level -regen resist, 95% or better. That shouldn't happen unless you want regen to be as completely dependent on regeneration to the degree that SR is almost wholly dependent upon def (which would be terrible for different reasons). Adding def/res - go play Bio if that's what you want. Or if you can only play half a toon, play invuln. Regen must retain its identity as a set relying on click heals as opposed to passive mitigation, in order to add variety to the oppressive, unfun, stale, yawn inducing and boring mitigation/softcap/hardcap meta. No def/res outside of the small amount you get from resilience, and mog - and I would be delighted if they changed the latter so it gives something other than mits, too. Adding absorb - this is less bad than the others, but if regen gets easy access to large amounts of absorb (think particle shield) then it may need to lose some strength from dull pain. Otherwise, regen's ehp may end up being too high. Note how rad/dark/etc. have no +maxhp at all and bio only has a moderate amount of +maxhp. I think people often underestimate the difficulty of balancing healing (as an umbrella term for regen, absorb, and actual heal damage). Healing is very easily overpowered if you allow it to get out of hand (as old Regen was at some point). It is damtype agnostic, tohit agnostic, and scales incredibly strongly with all the passive mitigation flying around in the IO system right now.

In case you are not doing this already, use heat loss on cooldown. Even on a single target, it is nearly +100% recovery. Good heatloss uptime is critical to a steady flow of endurance. Here are my proposed changes, bearing in mind your build goals. Below I will explain what I have changed and why. This build has exactly 40% ranged def. Your barrier core T4 is essentially perma-5% def and res to all. Hence, you will be softcapped to range (and about 30% to melee/aoe) with it on, and this should suffice for babymode. The cost of these defenses is 15% rech, leaving your hasten about 4s from permanent. Keeping the rech will require significant changes to the build. However, my assessment is that it's okay to have a small gap in hasten (and sleet not perfectly double-stacked), and this build has better heatloss uptime due to better enhancement value in it - power transfer was designed for damaging attacks so a lot of its enhancement value is tied up in damage, not rech. Note that we have swapped teleport for flight and hover. With the free power choice this gives us, I recommend ice storm. You will sell your hecatombs and with the money buy a set of ragnaroks to put in it, effectively moving the set bonus there. You will also sell your apocs formerly in ice bolt because we are now getting another 10% rech bonus from the malice of the corr ATIO, reassembled as a full set in blizzard (you may prefer to swap the locations of the ATIO and ragnarok depending on where you want the damage proc). The sale will give you money to buy all the much cheaper IO's that are in this new build. Notice that your ice shields are now more weakly slotted. The reason is that you are no longer aiming for the HP cap so it is fine to lose the HP bonus from 3x lotg. The missing slot loses only 0.4% def to allies and gives us slots to invest in our own defenses. In the long run, you should consider whether you really need burnout. While it's funny to drop double-blizzards on trash and so on, all the things you can achieve with burnout are rather niche. If you are willing to drop burnout, CJ and super speed (the stealth doesn't stack with fog, the celerity you have in sprint does though), you can instead take kick/tough/weave. This makes you significantly tankier and eases the difficulty of getting defense, potentially allowing diversion of set bonuses back to rech instead, or, for example, dropping bfr as a set mule - these are the significant changes I referred to earlier. icecold2.mbd

I will respond to the OP in just a moment, but I want to comment on this first: This build is fine and extremely effective. This is a high-dps procbombing build, so the mules are needed to get rech/acc (this also explains the slotting in eg. sleet, because they need the actual attacks to carry procs). Procbombing colds are extremely effective when a smooth run means shanking the AV's fast before lore pets time out. The survivability on this build comes from being HP capped, hence all the 2x malice of the corr for the 3% HP bonus. In 4*, the goal is to survive just one hit after which it is the healer's job to fix you. The def and res will come from barrier and team buffs. 0 def 0 res blasters do fine on 4*, after all. However, in another way you are also correct because - for those who have not done hard mode that may be reading this - it is potentially risky not to have good def/res because pugs will usually not bring another def buffer if they have a cold, then you die because you can't shield yourself. It doesn't matter so long as there are other def buffs going out but it is a substantial amount of comp flexibility being lost. I actually suspect this is why OP asks for a more general-purpose build because in babymode content you can't always assume there will be such buffs going around. So, suggestions around adding def and res may not be out of line with OP's needs after all. 4* is more about intelligent play and teamwork than it is about uber builds, but that does mean being aware of your strengths and limitations, and what teammates are likely to bring to the table.

Coh over the years has become increasingly focused on DPS to the exclusion of everything else. Bringing substantial DPS capacity in addition to draining means that when you are on fast-moving, well-armored teams that don't need draining as mitigation, or when facing foes where draining is not effective (that's most AV's - they nerfed draining AV's in i27p3) you still contribute substantially. Of course, this is just my recommendation. You may not team a lot or you may not want to dps for a variety of reasons including concept. I know some people are still satisfied with their elec trollers who take a minute and a half to kill a spawn of council in 2023 - though I wouldn't consider that high performing.

Your post is so wrapped up in your own little bubble of self-interest it's hilarious, but you do get one thing correct, which is that issues with procs and tankers (since we're on the subject) are multifactorial in nature. Firstly, damage procs need to be work differently from other procs, such as self-buff or possibly even debuff procs. The PPM system as-is is reasonably fair for damage procs with exceptions I will discuss next. However, when you can manipulate the system in order to keep certain self-buffs perma (tanker ATIO) or make them nearly guaranteed (gaussian) that contradicts the design goal of a probability-based event in the first place. I think we should be more open to the fact that different categories of procs can and should have different rulesets, with certain specific powerful procs having their own unique firing conditions - see preventive medicine for an example currently live. Secondly, the interactions of all procs with aoes and especially rech buffs need looking at. All the ways that procbombing builds currently cheat the system and end up with higher procrates than intended should be addressed. This includes using aoes to effectively roll multiple times to fire a buff proc, and sourcing rech from set bonuses and permanent buffs to avoid taking a hit to procrates. Thirdly, there need to be greater trade-offs in the game. I am personally a fervent advocate of the idea that an appropriately geared defender should be able to do the same damage as a scrapper, or even more. This adds valuable build diversity and replayability to the game - if I want a high damage character, you can tell me "just go play a scrapper", but finding ways to build for high damage on other AT's presents a build challenge, and that's the essence of a game. However, to me, there must be a trade-off for your strengths. If the defender wants to deal the same damage as the scrapper in the same safety, that's fine - but it had better have zero support capacity, including zero ability to magnify damage for other players through -res or +dmg. Problematically, this is not the case in coh, because in coh procs are only bonuses and never maluses or even sidegrades. The current situation is imbalanced not so much because tankers can have great damage, but because the tanker can clear as fast as the ostensibly DPS AT's while still keeping most of their tanker scalar HP, armor toggles, debuff resists, sustain and aggro control. This brings me to my final point, which is: Fourthly, the way that def and res operate in this game is dysfunctional. Both def and res scale hyperbolically until the soft/hardcap, where each additional point is more valuable than the last. If you have 0% res, and get +10% res, you live about +11% longer against X incoming dps. But if you already have 80% res, and get +10% res, you live +100%, or twice as long against the same incoming dps. In fact, the reverse should be true and there should be diminishing, not accelerating, returns on investment. This is a little-recognized but very major reason why tankers are stronger than brutes: since they are closer to the caps out of the gate they are exponentially tougher, so they have vastly more build capacity to invest in offense. More broadly, this is what actually makes IO builds immensely stronger than SO's and why there will always be difficulties providing a satisfactory game experience whenever both are playing together. Will these problems be fixed? I think in our lifetime we will see some attempt to address #1 and #2. I am personally very eager to see the Aprocalypse (TM) when it happens. When looking at Homecoming team's past changes, both ones that are considered buffs and nerfs, such as the changes to resistance set bonuses, the typed defense overhaul, etc. I think it's pretty obvious that these changes have rejuvenated the build design scene and been highly beneficial for the metagame. I have great hopes for what Homecoming can achieve on this front, and look forward to a new era of procbombing. I think #3 will always persist because attempts to fix it will be viewed, not just as nerfs, but as very significant changes to the game/powersets/gear and those are not politically acceptable to the broader community, especially one as staid and set in its ways as this one. It should be addressed, but I would be satisfied merely with the issue not getting worse than it already is. We saw attempts to band-aid #4 from both Paragon and Homecoming, the former by giving incarnate mobs bonus tohit, the latter by instituting "hard" mode. Given the changes to typed defense, however, I think it's fair to say "never say never" to some possible overhaul of the way mitigation works in this game far down the line.

This build has a number of wasted slots, because you are not paying proper attention to slot-efficiency. And I know from past experience you're the kind of person who's not mentally tough enough to withstand criticism (goes hand in hand with being a forumite guide-maker); I'm posting anyway for the benefit of others who will read this thread. To wit: You choose 3x pounding slugfest (lmao) in maiming slash for 1.25% EN def. That's 0.625% Defense Per Added Slot. If you really want EN def, you should've slotted another set of 3x eradication for 3.13% EN def, or 1.565% DPAS - some 2.5 times as efficient. For example, you could complete the 6x hecatomb in maiming, and slot savage leap as say 3x erad 2x oblits 1x armageddon (chosing pieces with the damage procs and boosting the remaining pieces +5 to compensate for enhancement values). This effectively moves the purple set bonuses to maiming slash and gains 2 nonpurple damage procs in savage leap. Moral of the story: prioritize slotting sets that give the most slot-efficient bonuses, and be creative about making up the set bonuses you need elsewhere. Another example is how you slotted for regen. Your regen comes from a mishmash of 6%, 8% bonuses and an impervious skin unique. Now, you already have a numina's unique in inexhaustible. If you could take just 1 of those slots you invested to add a +5 Numina's: heal here, you would gain a whopping 38.5% regen due to the combination of the numina's 2-piece bonus and the enhancement value increasing the regen. This also increases our maxhp. Moral of the story: consider whether direct investment in enhancement value gives more benefit than a minuscule set bonus. Further, when slotting a unique consider where a quick 1-3 piece slotting might provide a needed set bonus, taking advantage of the fact you need to slot 1 piece of the set anyway. I also note the 5% heal set bonus from touch of the nictus. I can't tell if this is a halfhearted attempt to build for +heal, however it's worth noting that +heal set bonuses do not work on absorbs, nor regens (it's +heal damage, because healing is coded as a damage type in the game). So this helps the heals from DNA siphon but not, say, your abalative carapace. It's why spiritual isn't automatically the #1 alpha for tanker bios (that, and procbombing) because it is also specifically +heal and not absorb. In general, you chose a lot of sets which stop short of their most efficient bonuses and neglect areas where boosting could save a slot. For example, you have 4x lotg in environmental modification. If you could just spend 1 more slot, 5x offers a 3.75% SL res bonus. That's far larger than the 1.5% SL res bonus you are spending 1 slot in impervious skin for. You chose 5x panacea in abalative carapace. However, 6x prevmed would not only add the unique (which you lack) but stronger set bonuses anyway. You slot 3x shieldwall and pass on the EN res for 4x. etc. However, I will say you did at least one thing right, which is the choice of musculature radial over core. When you have a lot of +recovery/end powers, you can sometimes gain more slot-efficiency by taking a very minor hit on +dmg. Endo sets do not have many strong options at 1-3 slots, so being able to skimp or even avoid that slotting entirely is a good use of an alpha. (Blasters, for example, may also find this worthwhile.) Also, I do commend you for not doing any deceptive mids-warrioring shit, like slotting an FF proc in Kick and toggling it on to look better in mids or setting Invincibility to 10 targets and so on. Forumite builders love doing that, and I just don't understand why. Here's a quick and dirty illustration of what I am talking about. Your build: My improvements. See the empty slots? Those are set bonuses that we have now regained. Would I play this build? No. I usually don't bother with SL def on bio (which is impractical to softcap anyway) but that's a subject for another thread. One final thing: Ageless radial epiphany gives... +85.00% debuff res for the first 30s +42.50% debuff res for the next 30s +21.25% debuff res for the next 60s ... on a 2 min cycle. What this means is that, 50% of the time, a +0 bright nova in the ITF will blast you for -15.75% def instead of -20% and you are un-softcapped anyway and start to defense cascade. Ageless is strong on sets that already have a moderate amount of debuff resist to stack with it. It's because bio has no DDR that ageless does nothing for its DDR (though it can still be a valid choice for the slow res or the rech, both of which this build has a paucity of). Just heal through whatever hits you and forget about DDR. You're not an SR; you don't need no damn DDR.

Effective sapping, and especially sapping as a form of mitigation, requires the ability to floor blue bars quickly - within a few seconds - and then keep it there for at least a while. If you can't drain blue bars significantly faster than people can drain red bars, what's the point? Just do damage instead. So you need some powers that have big -end, and some that have a good amount of -recovery. The good news is that elec blast provides a lot of -recovery on its own, from powers like short circuit and ball lightning; notably both are 100% chance to give -recovery, unlike some other powers. You just need some help on the -end front since thunderous blast isn't up every spawn (as a taoe nuke it has longer rech than normal). My personal favorite is kin. Transference is a huge -55% end and it is available every spawn. And the great thing about a kin sapper is that it's still, well, a kin. You aren't pigeonholed into relying on sapping, or the shocked mechanic, because you still bring massive healing and damage independent of that. Kin is also the least slot-dependent set - so you have ample build capacity to invest in whatever you like. kin/elec/soul. Try it. Powerboost, soul drain, transference, short circuit. If you want to branch out, you may consider blaster sappers, which are again very strong because they still do blaster dps outside of the sapping aspect. elec/elec is a classic combo with powersink, but elec/nrg is also very strong with its powerboost.

When both are fully geared, tanks generally have the potential for better dps (as measured by clear times, they are still somewhat lower on a pylon) than brutes, though it does require some familiarity with build design skills. Tanks have better defensive stats out of the box, so tanks should trade-off their defenses for offensive power; that is to say, they should invest less in mitigations (since they already have that in excess), in order to invest in offensive options like procs instead. On my brutes I still have to putz about softcapping and hardcapping and whatnot. On my tanks they are all defense softcapped and nearly res hardcapped out of the gate and most build capacity goes into procbombing. The tank melee damage scalar is now 0.95, in addition to having increased area of effect on area attacks (applies to epic aoes as well). If you think 95% of blaster melee damage and 22.5 ft radius dark oblits are weak, well...

No, this build is terrible. You don't skip crushing uppercut; it is the highest DPA attack and potentially +1 purple damage proc because it accepts unbreakable constraint. Skip either the T1 or T2 attack instead. Positional defense sets on a typed defense build* - classic amateur mistake. For example, they slot 5x frozen blasts for 2.5% FC def when they could've just added a 6th blistering cold for 5% FC def. Whoever built this just wasted you 3 slots and >100 million inf in winter IOs. This is basic incompetence by someone who knows diddly squat about build design, brutes, WP, or the invention system. Also - they evidently don't know how to build for EN def (possibly only having experience building positional defense armors). * However, the 4x unbreakable guards are okay because unbreakable guards are not bad anyway for the EN res. If you're already slotting 3x unbreakable, an additional slot for 1.56 SL def is still a good deal. An alternative slotting for resist toggles on typed defense armors is 3-4x reactive armor for 1.5% SL res and 1.25% SLEN def - this too is valuable because EN def is rarer on armored AT's. Splitting up the brutes fury ATIO 3 and 3 is good (most slot-efficient SL def in the game) but not the unrelenting fury. Splitting unrelenting up gives 16% regen twice. Slotting it 6x gives 6% SLENFC res on top of 2.5% SL def. If you have a modicum of common sense, you should be able to identify which option is better. Put 6x unrelenting somewhere else (maybe spinning strike). Remaining slots in the powers that took 3x brutes fury can be filled with procs or left empty - it's acceptable to underslot some weaker powers on brutes since their melee dmg scalar is weak and most damage comes from the fury mechanic. Which clown puts an endredux IO in indom will instead of muling an lotg or something actually useful there, then turns on the FF proc in kick to deceptively make the build look more impressive in mids? Microfilament in swift... Lol. Lmao, even. With one of the slots you saved add a Numina's: heal in health, boosted to +5, for 33.2% regen. If you want to build for regen, this is the way to do it - make sure you get up to the rule of 5 cap on 12% regen bonuses. RTTC, HPT, fast healing et all can all be 1-3 slotted with numinas, boosted to +5 to ED-cap heal enhancement where needed. I don't like to ask people to change epics because it is often a matter of concept and playstyle. However A WP build should not need the endurance from phys perfection unless procbombing which this build is not. If possible, take an epic with good blasts instead or that offer interesting slotting possibilities. Soul with its gloom that has really good DPA and darkest night to cushion hits when they do get through is so much better on top of offering interesting slotting possibilities. As for the regen, even 2x apoc in gloom gives +16% regen. Phys perfection is only 26.6%. And if you must take energy epic, at least get the best power - energy torrent (despite the description, it's knockdown on brutes). This is a quick and dirty illustration of what I mean. Same rech, same SL res, more EN def, more exotic res, more regen, more HP though its not shown in the window, better attacks, two healing procs, -res proc, 1 free power choice, and less wasting 30M or so on vanity IO's in swift. I'm a trillionaire, I just hate waste. Note which IO's are boosted. Shield wall is a PVPIO and can be safely boosted +5 without losing enhancement value when exemplaring. Same with purples. IO's in partially slotted sets and low-level (20-35) IO sets are boosted to increase their enhancement value. And mids crashed when I tried to export, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Think carefully which pieces of each set should be slotted, and come to your own conclusions.

Firstly: regarding your health condition, my sympathies and I hope you find some way to continue enjoying the game despite it. Seizures are one of the common health risks associated with video games. The solution that immediately comes to mind is some kind of FX mod - unfortunately, you may be forced to make your own if the trigger for your condition is not prevalent among the general population. Secondly: There may or may not be some decline in cultural norms (as you put it), but there is a reason for the reaction of your team. Humans all suffer from a natural cognitive bias where we tend to rely on our own perspective too much, and fail to view things from the perspectives of others. This is known in psychology as egocentric bias (unrelated to the lay concept of egotism). So, for example, your teammates are not able to conceive of a health condition that requires turning X power off because they have never experienced one. Or, they assume that if they suffered from such, surely they would either stop playing the game or have found some way around it, because they rely on their own POV to imagine what they do in such a situation, rather than trying to adopt yours. The egocentric bias also has a number of related effects, one of which is that we tend to believe that our intentions, thoughts, priorities, etc. are more apparent to others than they really are, and that those around us have similar outlooks to us. So, conversely, you may assume the amount of discomfort you are experiencing or the necessity of them turning off their powers is more apparent to your teammates than it is. Or, you may imagine that if you were in their shoes, you would agree to turn off the offending power and then assume that this outlook is shared by the team. I need to emphasize that I am not accusing you of being illogical or anything; cognitive biases are just human nature, no less normal than the blind spot on the human retina. I think everyone has their own cross to carry - even people who are outwardly successful, happy or healthy may be hiding some hidden problem or trauma. So, yes, we should be kind and accepting, as much as possible. However, it's always going to be difficult to request others to accommodate to you; they may be struggling themselves and preoccupied with that, or they may just be laboring under the heaviest cross of all, human nature. All we can do is, where possible, strive to put on our own life jacket first, so that we can be the one handing them out to the next person.

Blapping is an option for blasters to increase DPS by replacing weaker ranged attacks with stronger melee ones, and/or leveraging powerful pbaoes and damage/debuff auras. Most blaster 2ndaries have access to a T2 (eg. fire sword) and T9 (eg. golden dragonfly) attack, or equivalent. Not only are these attacks typically stronger than the T1 and T2 ranged blasts of blasters, they offer the opportunity to add additional purple damage procs or other unique procs. Soundsplitter, for example, adds 2 purple damage procs to your rotation that you otherwise won't have. Furthermore, some 2ndaries reward melee play by offering damage auras or buff/debuff auras, such as /rad. Some have also taken to blapping as a playstyle, challenging themselves to survive in close range without the defenses of an armored AT. This comment has a disappointing lack of murderous intent. Are you certain a blaster is the right AT for you? The basic blaster playstyle is: Slot the gaussian chance for build up proc in either aim or BU. Press both aim and BU. You are now nearly damage capped. (100% base + 100% BU + 80% gaussian's + 62.5% aim + 120% enhancements and musc alpha + 20% IO set bonuses and assault hybrid passive component = 482.5%, cap is 500%) Press the nuke and delete 90% of the spawn. You may need to move close to the enemy first. Clean up the survivors of nuclear bombardment two surviving half-health bosses with whatever attacks you have, melee or ranged. The melee AT's do more ST dps under optimal conditions, but blasters as a whole are hideously overpowered in the modern coh meta.

Fwiw, I agree with you; rad is really strong on all 4 armored AT's (and flat-out nerf-worthy on the 90% res cap ones). Even the defensive weakness is probably somewhat overestimated in the modern meta where the game is overflowing in +def buffs. Drive your /rad stalker to an itrial or 4* anything, and see how long you can go without being incarnate-softcapped, lol. Incidentally, I must say that I'm impressed. Every large build compilation on the forums I have encountered until now is garbage. This is the only one I have seen so far where the builds seem to be designed by someone with an overall competent grasp of their AT and powerset mechanics, the invention system, and build design principles; and who is not engaging in mids-warrioring (ie building for what looks pretty in mids, not what works in the game), nor doing dishonest shit like toggling on incarnate powers or setting invincibility to 10 targets to give a misleading impression of build capabilities.