Zect

A general framework for a blaster, any blaster is: 3 single target blasts (generally, pick the 3 highest DPA ones. Open mids, windows > power graphs > sort by damage / animation) Nuke (T9 from the primary) at least 2 aoe's, can be from primary or 2ndary aim and build up for sets that have them, take both if available sustain power from the 2ndary (the one that gives endurance and some form of HP restoration or absorb) dps support power from the 2ndary. This can be a damage aura, self-buff (eg +rech, +tohit) or foe debuff (-res, -regen) depending on set Not 'mandatory', but nearly always a good idea to have: 1 melee attack - allows you to risk melee to gain DPS by replacing lower-DPA ranged attacks in your attack chain, and provides access to melee sets for set bonuses Your ranged immob if the 2ndary has one - prevents AV's from running. Also a 2nd attack usable when mezzed, it typically has DPA close to a T1 blast Obviously, individual preferences and build goals vary, so you will find builds that do not follow the above yet are successful; but you cannot go far wrong with this setup, and it will go almost anywhere and do almost anything.

I call a spade a spade; if I think suggestions are bad, I say they are bad. I am straight-talking and blunt, as many will attest. You're more than welcome to speak to me in the same way, and say the same things about my suggestions. Crashless nukes have never been subject to a balance pass and are long overdue for one. They are one of the more egregious issues with the current game and there being far too much dps, especially aoe dps, flying around. Right now, the "classic", i.e. formerly crashing, nukes occupy a local maxima of performance where they can be used every spawn and deal enough damage to wipe all non-bosses. Among other balance fixes, I would like their damage and rech increased so that it is pushed far, far out of the 145s sweet spot, and a mild crash of -30 to -50 end added (immune to endredux slotting). This would make nukes more rarely and more thoughtfully used, but far more impactful when used, as befits a T9 power. AR and archery should be the only sets allowed to have truly crashless, low-recharge nukes. But that's a topic for another day. For now, we can all leave aside such odious matters as the oppressive, unfun blaster meta, and applaud the OP's suggestion.

With the exception of requests for costumes/power customization, this forum is often filled with munchkin whines thinly veiled as suggestions, with little concern for such things as variety, diversity, balance, choice, replayability, or even fun, you know, the alleged point of a game in the first place. "Let me take weave without picking boxing first!" cries one baby. "X doesn't do enough damage! Buff it!" wails another. One hopes Homecoming team don't listen to feedback; that would be disastrous for the game. This, however, this takes the cake. What we have here is a reasonable suggestion with clear benefits for all players regardless of playstyle, with well-illustrated examples and some thought given to what implementation would look like. This is the rarest of purple drops: a post on an MMO suggestion forum that is not stupid.

Obviously, YMMV on this kind of thing and there is content in which each powerset shines. However, what I'm trying to convey to OP with my post is that being a 'meat shield' in the sense of a player who protects other players involves more than just survivability and taunts, even those are an important part of the kit. Often, people like OP come along and ask "I want to do zero dps while being completely unkillable. How?!" My facetious answer is, phase shift - does exactly what they ask for. Perhaps ice armor (for hibernate) + concealment is the real turtling meta?

I'm going to posit an unconventional answer for the best meat shield. You ready? It is... Shield. I find that when such questions come up, a lot of the focus seems to be on surviving damage (and surviving only through mitigation, ignoring other tools). However, the meta in 2023 is a fast-paced teaming environment where aoe's are common, fighting above the aggro cap occurs frequently, most tank armor sets operate near mitigation caps, and debuffs, not raw damage, are what typically kills tankers. Actually protecting the team in such circumstances involves much more than just optimizing for maximum EHP. Shield protects teammates with grant cover, and quickly kills minions with its powerful shield charge to reduce the number of enemies below the aggro cap. Shield using the Defense Chain Concept and cycling melee core > rune > owts on a 4 min cycle can achieve defense softcap and resistance hardcap, with superior DDR and only 600-700 less maxHP than an invuln tank. Unlike invuln, it also doesn't lose defense when forced to kite against the hardest hitting foes in game and has superior mobility to get where a tank is necessary. A shield/DM/soul combining self-heals with defender-strength debuff toggles and 22.5ft radius ranged aoe taunts that do damage (dark oblit) is an absolute tanking monster.

This makes the issue seem more serious than it really is. For trollers, most of their dps comes from procs and for doms, most of it from their assault and epic unless you are fire/, which gives them the option of diversifying their damtype (though mind/psi does have its devotees). Using your own source, from 1-20 psi is the 2nd best damtype, from 20-40 it is the 3rd best, and that outdated sheet does not include any of the enemy groups from GR onward anyway. Psi used to be bad in the old endgame, back when everything was malta, carnies, nemesis, rikti and arachnos, but as years went by newer endgame content has generally tried not to disadvantage psi as much, and it is neutral to strong in ITF, aeon, itrials (mostly IDF, some hami and BP) and hardmode. And you want to talk about not making a compelling argument! Lol. I do wish they would reduce psi res on arachnos and beef up other resists to compensate; it's pretty insane that a tarantula has 50% and an augur only has 30%.

This is the only suggestion I have ever encountered in this forum that made me think "yes, we need this". However, I will propose some improvements. The bomb should damage players as well, so that the bomber needs to retreat to a safe distance before setting it off for realism (otherwise you just set and detonate immediately, and it basically becomes a melee attack). I also want to be able to put sticky bombs on teammates, the trainer NPCs, and random passers-by.

elecaff provides mez prot (faraday cage). Unusually, it also protects from sleep/KB/KU/Repel, being one of very few sources of grantable repel prot in the game, no confuse though. The catch? It's only while you stand in the affected area. It's up to you to move the cage around with you as necessary.

While leveling you should avoid leadership (or at least only run it situationally). Storm is the most endurance-intensive support set. Look at the costs of your powers; lightning storm is 31 (!!) end. You almost certainly do not have the ability to support the use of storm powers and leadership powers. Endgame storm plays very differently to levelling storm. Endgame, IO'ed out storm is a high-recharge, high-dps powerset focusing on the use of 4 key powers that every storm should have: Freezing rain Lightning storm Tornado Steamy mist An IO'ed storm can shit out 2x freezing rains, 3x lightning storms and 2x tornadoes at once, buffed by perma-souldrain and permahaste while softcapping with steamy mist and maneuvers. This massive amount of damage, -res and defense is what makes storms formidable endgame toons. The remaining powers are not useless, but situational. Thunderclap may mule a purple or be decent if you have another stun to stack with it (eg oppressive from /soul epic); though the duration is pretty shit. O2 boost is a very weak heal, but the drain resist is valuable and it can mule the prevmed unique (it works all the time, not just when you cast the power). It can also free teammates who eat a wakie. Snow storm is weak but may be helpful for keeping mobs in your freezing rain, especially while solo. Hurricane is optional for an incarnate storm. While potentially useful, and once considered a keystone of storm play, it is not as reliable as +def and no longer critical in the modern game where a stormfender can get 32.5%-45% def to all positions. That said, you should still have either one of gale or hurricane because being able to move mobs around has tactical value. Since hurricane is more useful for leveling builds (who do not have as much def), you can play with it on the journey to 50 and make a decision on whether to keep it when you get there. Remember that hurricane should have a KB2KD in it so that only the repel pushes critters around, and that it should only be used situationally - I sometimes see stormies who keep it on all the time. It is very endurance costly, and competes for blue with the Big 4.

This build is surprisingly good considering that you have chosen ambitious build goals (high res, high rech and some def on the side) which place intense demands on slot-efficiency. The sets chosen are in general strong options for your chosen goals, and I'm pleased to see the use of sets such as purples and bombardments which offer rare combinations of res and rech to help achieve them. However, chasing melee def and then deciding to pass on the 6th piece bonus from oblit still earns you a slap from me. fig. 1: a sinner receives his due punishment. There remain 3 major areas where your build can be improved: One, you should strongly consider a touch of essence proc in dark regen (and slot dark regen for healing enhancement). This has already been recommended, but it was not explained why this proc is so good: as of the apr 2023 patch, it was still coded to be able to fire more than once per power activation. fig. 2: A completely overpowered proc that should be immediately nerfed; 6 procs from a single power activation on 10 mobs. HC developers, take note. This means that with the toe proc in dark regen, it is very common to get back more endurance than you spent and this turns the power into a dual-purpose heal and +end power. With its short 30s base recharge, you may end up getting more blue from dark regen than from dark consumption (with its much longer rech and much smaller area). I don't use this on a lot of my own builds, because I am obsessed with optimizing for single-target fights (and correctly predicted the MDC nerf, hah!), but most players are well advised to take advantage of it. Two, you should build for more slow resist (the exact amount is a matter of debate; I personally aim for 80%-100%). Slows are very common, and deadly to resist sets that depend on quick-recharging heals. Even the council, everyone's favorite whipping boys, have snipers and galaxies. Because -rech tends to come together with -movespeed, poor slow resist tends to lead not only to loss of sustain but also loss of ability to disengage or to kill the offending enemies. Furthermore, slows have less easily-available counterplay (if confronted with -res for example, you can eat orange insps, or if confronted with -tohit you can eat yellows, however options to neuter -rech are less common). I actually find it funny that @Snarky is so scared of resist debuffing on his literally 0% slow resist build when slows are so much more common and more deadly. (I suspect he's really just traumatized by gold brickers.) Three, you would benefit from more even resist breakpoints. For example, if you are able to hit 83-85% negative/F/C res, that gives you the option to easily hardcap all but E and tox res with barrier or a defense amp. You are also overcapped on the 6% FC res bonus which suggests that further efficiencies can be found. I threw together a quick and dirty illustration of what I am talking about: fig. 3: If I were even more arrogant than I already were, I would give this some pretentious snob name like forumite mids-warriors love to do. Say, "Zect's Dark Armor Framework" or "The Night King Special". Here is an example that is resistance hardcapped or nearly there to all but E and tox with either a 7.5% res bonus (defense amp) or a 5% res bonus (barrier T4, yours or someone else's - you will naturally take damage while fighting, so the reactive defense unique will pick up the last 1.6% or so). Note the cloak of fear is no more. It pulses only once per 5s (unlike most toggles) and is only mag 2. In fact, as a /soul, darkest night is stronger than it if you can find the power pick for it, offering a huge -tohit and -dmg debuff. I do not recommend cloak of fear on IO builds. Finally, a note: gloom is good. In fact, it has higher DPA than any of your dark melee attacks, and is better than many melee T9's, at the cost of being a dot. I encourage you to experiment further and consider tweaking your build goals based on your play experience. For example, going for less melee defense or dropping some powers, which may free up build resources to go for a properly slotted gloom. Or, relying on a base empowerment buff +20% rech which may enable dropping ageless for barrier, if you find that the recovery is not necessary with cardiac and the toe proc. You seem to have a decent grasp of build design principles and the IO system.

You cannot rank fender blast sets, or even place them on a tier list, because that implies a 1-dimensional axis of performance (e.g. DPS rankings), wheras fenders pick their 2ndaries for various reasons. Fender blast sets are best understood as 3 interlocking circles on a venn diagram: The debuffers - sets such as /elec and /sonic which construct build strategies around the 2ndary effect The procbombers - sets such as DP and water who synergize well with the PPM mechanic The blasters - sets chosen for the properties of the attacks themselves (DPA, damtype, area, radius, etc.) such as fire which has a good damtype and still does decent DPA even with fender scalars, or psi which is strong in hardmode against psi-vulnerable EB's such as ITF beasts and aeon brickernauts. For example, DP is a strong procbomber set; however, unusually it offers a means of getting -dmg and has an attack that does -res (intersection with the debuffers). An kin/elec aiming to floor AV endurance completely (sadly nerfed in i27p3) and a kin/DP aiming to procbomb while leveraging -dmg against AV's and tough targets are completely different beasts. I know that some only want others to tell them which cliff the lemmings are jumping off so they can join in, but such an approach works poorly with support toons. Careful consideration of your build goals, design priorities and target content are important to produce the fender you want to play; otherwise, all you're likely to get is some forumite foisting their personal biases on you.

Less an AT, but an entire powerset category: support. Other powerset categories are quite same-y. If you've played one blast or armor set, you've played most of them. Oh, the animation times may differ, the power order may differ, sometimes you get to choose if you want build up or follow up, etc. Occasionally you get the one oddball, like Mind control not having a pet nor a 90s aoe mez, or TW with its very impactful (heh) momentum system that upends the concept of the attack chain which coh players have used to think about ST DPS for many years. But broadly speaking, most sets within their category are very homogenized and offer only 1-2 powers that may be considered truly different. Lame. The support sets, on the other hand, each offer a radically different experience. An emp spot healing and precision-buffing critical teammates, with an intense focus on individual players' statuses, is a world away from an aggressive kin seeking out optimal targets for FS and transfuse and paying close attention to enemy movement and positioning. A tanky time plowing through the frontline with debuff auras and pbaoe buffs is very different from an offensive storm shredding everything with multiple lightning storms and tornadoes eating up resistance debuffed enemies. In coh the task of surviving enemy fire can be accomplished by such varied means as debuffs, by healing, by mitigation, by offense being the best defense, and by controls and mezzes and repels and blinds. Then to all this amazing diversity and variety, the four AT's with access to support sets each offer a different paradigm of how that support focus may be synergized with a different toolkit. Groundbreaking. Support AT's and the decision to make support powers not only really powerful, but more impactful than personal buffs (as they rightly and always should be), is one of the few things Cryptic/Paragon got right about their combat system. This unique, defining characteristic of this game's combat continues to make it stand out from its trinity MMO competitors. However if you ask me to pick just one AT I would have to say Masterminds. It's very rare to find an MMO with a good pet class, and MM's are one of the few things that still scratch the itch.

Rad has more survivability. Rad has 2 heals to elec's one and indirectly gets +maxhp (due to absorb) while elec does not. Rad's resist holes are extremely mild compared to elec's literal 0% tox resist - in a world where invulns easily get perma 90% psi res, elec is the last remaining armor set with an actual miti hole (which is only really closed by the T9). Elec can be built as a turtle-tank, but its true potential is as a high offense, high durability Main Battle Tank. Many people look at the high base resists and mistake elec for a miti tank, forgetting that IO builds of other resist tanks already hardcap most/all resist anyway. The real use of the high base resists lies in allowing you to divert slots to offense instead while capitalizing on elec's endredux and +rech powers to enable procbombing. My elec/SS has perma 90% res to all including negative except tox (24%), 100% slow res, +205% perma global rech for perma-double rage, and all but 1 attack stuffed with procs. Let's just say that if this tank had been shipped to the Ukrainians, they would be on the far side of Crimea by now. Neither elec nor rad "depend" on mobs being near them in the way that, say, Invuln does (if invuln has nothing in melee with it, it instantly loses like 17% def which means when you take a big hit from an AV, kiting while you recuperate is a trickier proposition), though they both derive mild benefits from having critters in melee with them. My favored tactic is to pull like the next 5 rooms. When everyone is above the aggro cap, it really doesn't matter if a blaster scatters everything with a nova because there will still be 16 targets aggroed on you. Yes, because they are both very good armor sets - though their strengths, as mentioned, lie in different areas (rad slightly more defensive, elec slightly more offensive). All armor sets are broadly viable in endgame. There are even ways around elec's tox issues if you want. I do find rad better for tanking 4* HM (except for 4* Hero1, his sword slashes are one of very few hard hitting cold attacks in the game) simply because it has more sustain and healing is one of the iffiest things to outsource to the team - most coh players are just not good healers. However, you really should not base your decision off the hardmode meta. Most people who fret about hardmode never even play the content and it is a very minor part of endgame so it should not be a major factor in your calculations unless you are wanting to make a toon specifically for it.

You can blap with 0 def and 0 res; I have builds that do. The skill requirement is considerably higher, of course, but on a team it should not be a big issue. Learn to joust (hop between attacks so that your momentum carries you out of enemy melee range while your attack is animating). Queue up attacks between hops so they start animating once you land at the feet of an enemy, then bounce away. Learn to use tools that are not IO's and set bonuses, and recognize when it is not safe to melee. Purples contribute rech and res (specifically, F/C/Psi/tox resist which is not normally a major component of blaster miti strats), not def. Melee def is usually not required on a blaster, blapping or not blapping. Melee def is most important for toons fighting prolonged combats in melee with taunt auras that prevent the enemy AI deciding to run away; on a blaster, by the time you get to that point usually you are dead or the enemies are dead. Blasters can often get by with ranged def alone even if they do venture into melee. More generally, builds can usually pursue one build goal fairly cheaply. Where builds get really expensive is trying to pursue multiple conflicting build goals; for example, a permahasten, SLR softcapped blaster. Or, a procbombing, all resist hardcapped doublestacked rage tank. For that you need slot-efficiency, and that tends to cost. Finally, just putting this out there, you may want to consider not being okay with never having billions, mainly because it's actually quite easy to make money. That said, 99.9% of the content in this game has piss poor reward rates and the megabucks comes from just a few specific avenues - marketing and farming primarily, with things like 4* and hami as a distant third. So if all of that bores you and you prefer to just play for fun, I do completely respect that and wish you well on your billion-less career.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=brute_melee.dark_melee.shadow_maul&at=brute https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=brute_melee.dark_melee.soul_drain&at=brute Look in the top left corner (next to Activation Details). It says Strengths disallowed: range. So, range enhancement does not work on it. Nearly all attacks from melee powersets are coded this way, except the ones that are specifically intended to be exceptions, like Hurl. Conversely, arctic breath from mako's pool does not have this limitation, and +range does work on it: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=epic.brute_leviathan_mastery.arctic_breath&at=brute Another example. Most tanker melee cones are buffed by Gauntlet to have increased radius. However, tanker PBAOEs are specifically prevented from benefitting, see for example foot stomp: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_melee.super_strength.foot_stomp&at=tanker (Note Strengths disallowed: radius.) However, tanker epic aoes do not have this limitation. See for example https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=epic.brute_soul_mastery.dark_obliteration&at=tanker You really can have a 22.5ft radius, 16 target dark obliteration or fireball on a tanker. Completely overpowered; abuse ruthlessly and make devs cry.

Given the current meta of barrier stacking, all tanker primaries incl SR are resistance hardcapped or very nearly so regardless of team comp in +4 "hard" mode (quotation marks since it's not hard at all, just gear gated). This is doubly so given you have access to +res from your 2ndary. What differentiates tanks in HM is their offensive power, debuff resistances, access to sustain, and other defensive powers such as absorb and +maxhp that effectively buy more time to respond to damage spikes. As someone who is very involved in build optimization, I need to emphasize that hard mode is really not about uber builds. It's about teamwork, including the ability to take orders, and situational awareness. Any tanker primary can successfully tank hardmode.

If we mean endgame IO builds, SS. No contest. It is overpowered by every objective measure and the only reason it has escaped nerfs is because it is an issue zero set that people have lived with forever and any attempt to balance it results in loud and incessant whines. SS is a top 3 powerset (the exact ranking depends on build design & goals, and target content). What makes SS a strong choice: Powerful soft and hard control in every attack (KD, KU, hold) Powerful high DPA attacks (KOB, footstomp) Powerful constant tohit buff (Rage) that enables procbombing attacks and slot-efficiency gains (for example, needing less/no acc in heals such as dark regen) Powerful constant damage buff (Rage). A doublestacked rage tanker is almost at the damage cap. Ever fancied being your own kin? Powerful proc opportunities (all attacks accept KB sets, KOB accepts hold sets) Powerful, abnormally high radius on pbaoe attack (15ft vs 8ft) Few attacks needed (=more power choices available for mules and epic attacks) Its only real weaknesses are that 1) it gets its one aoe very late, but ever since the change to power order late last year, this has been much less of an issue and 2) it is an endurance-hungry set - it is actually one of the few 2ndaries that can spend all the endurance from ageless destiny. Punch and Haymaker have lower base DPA, but KOB and Footstomp have higher base DPA. Jab and comparisons of tanker T1's are irrelevant now that you can pick the T2 at level 1. SS base DPA: Punch: 36.38 Haymaker: 50.49 KOB: 79.16 Foot stomp: 33.43 (15ft) EM base DPA: Energy punch: 58.03 Bonesmasher: 59.67 TF: 67.85 Whirling hands: 23.65 (8ft) When viewed as a whole, SS is not clearly inferior to most other sets even before factoring in rage. The only real dud is Punch. Typical DPA for a tanker T2 attack is 50-60. The statement that SS has weaker attacks (without qualification) is fanfiction invented to excuse continued avoidance of rage nerfs. Hurl is poor dps-wise, but gives SS access to ranged damage sets such as winter's bite and apoc without needing to tap into an epic or pool power, which is useful in rare situations. As a tanker 2ndary power it also gives another option to place your ATIO's. Hurl for example can mule 3x gauntleted fist 3x winter's bite for 6% ENFC res and 15% slow res and do it all in 1 mule where normally 2 would be needed, saving a power choice. Niche != not great. Not every power has to be useful to every build. Furthermore, set-muling is an important component of a powerset's capabilities and must be fully taken into account. You already concede that this is irrelevant, but I just want to emphasise this is not much of an issue. Rad's primary mitigation is res, not def, and it is one of the sets with the highest eps. Lol.

There were already 5 thumbs down by the time I came round to add mine. Great work, everyone! For the OP, I suggest exploring build design principles a little. Once you're more familiar with the constraints that builds operate under, you'll appreciate a lot more why this change would be significantly imbalancing.

Staff is defensively very powerful. It's a parry set that can also get a resistance buff. The problem is that coh has become more and more about dps exclusively, so a defensive melee set is a hard sell - compare the whines about storm blast not doing enough dps on blasters. Then there's also the issue that defensive sets are inherently stronger on defensive AT's because of how def and res work in this game, where every point of def and res is more valuable than the last. Staff is much better on a tanker where the much higher mitigation numbers let you throw everything into procs and still be indestructible in nearly all babymode content. On a scrapper, a 75% res cap AT getting 10% from sky splitter, the numbers are just not good enough to be worth much.

Flares: 53.55 DPA Fire blast: 58.35 DPA Fireball: 62.81 DPA Endgame high-rech builds usually skip flares, and use fireball as a 2nd filler attack instead. However, this is difficult for a leveling build as the rech and endurance requirements are heavy. The fact that you state you play 1-50 more, and that you assume in your OP that you need two of flares/fireblast/arcane bolt, suggests that you frequently lack enough filler attacks for a gapless attack chain while leveling. In that case, you can take both fire blast and flares - a 2nd attack usable while mezzed may also be more useful to something that's not an endgame uberbuild. Arcane bolt has a lower DPA than any of these attacks, if you ignore arcane power. It also doesn't give defiance (the damage buff that all blaster native attacks give), and a long-animating attack has other disadvantages like overkill and corpse blasting. I don't have data on arcane bolt procrates, however I suspect it's unlikely to be better.

In principle, I agree. Always communicate with other players, and set and respect expectations. In practice... let's just say that if you "accidentally" toggle on enemies buffed players debuffed, and some idiot runs off to play the Rambo (because some people still pretend that soloing on a TF is impressive in 2023), dies, and ragequits in a huff, I will applaud loudly. Heroes getting humiliated never gets old!

The @Hyperstrike build is very low quality. And I'm not saying this because I have something against them; they're not important enough for that. I'm saying it because the build has mistakes and shows a lack of understanding of the powersets/AT in question. A post-mortem will increase your power levels, while educating you on build design basics. First, a number of obvious errors: No double-stacked active defense No shield charge 10% regen bonus violates rule of 5 Assault core hybrid All shields should strongly consider double-stacking active defense (recharge <= 60s, though in practice it's not a big deal to be a couple off). The -def resistance it gives stacks with itself. 1 stack of active defense: 52.8% -def resistance. 2 stacks: just over 70%. 2 stacks and ageless radial T4: perma-95% -def resist - basically an SR. Always double-stack AD - it doesn't need a lot of rech. There's also no shield charge and no gaussian chance for BU proc in Build Up. You may not know that shield charge does extra damage to enemies within 5ft of the impact point. Axe/shield can use axe cyclone to vacuum up mobs, then shield charge into the group, hitting all of them with the extra damage. Combined with BU that has a very high chance of proccing the gaussian proc, this helps quickly wipe all non-bosses and decrease incoming dps and debuffs. Secondly, looking at the choice of attacks: My suggestion is to drop cleave because unlike most melee T9's, it has abnormally low DPA (lower than all but Chop) and is only worth it unless every use cleaves at least 2 targets. This will then give us a power choice and slots to invest in shield charge. We can still achieve a gapless or near-gapless attack chain by investing in rech, which will help with 2x AD as well. Next, when you open up the build in mids this is what you see: Note the uneven defense spread of 62.3/47.0/42.3 M/R/Aoe. This means that you are either severely undercapped to R/Aoe, or overcapped to melee (representing excess set bonuses that are wasted and should be diverted elsewhere for more benefit). When defense is your primary line of mitigation, you should pick an even breakpoint, as opposed to randomly picking up defense bonuses. Note also that aoe is undercapped even to normal enemies. While aoes are less frequent, a lot of the hardest-hitting attacks in the game are aoes (it's very common for AV's to have blaster nukes, for example). I sure hope you weren't expecting phalanx fighting to pick up the slack. I personally recommend defense in the 46% to 50% range across the board, no more, to softcap and give a small buffer against debuffs. I don't recommend softcapping vs incarnate enemies on shield (requires 59.5%) , because the benefits are not significant enough to matter. Now that we've established our build goals, we can look at the slotting. Remember what I said about Gaussian's proc up there? If we decide to add that to this power, then a mere 3 extra slots gives us 7.5% def (+2.5% to each position), a massive slot-efficiency gain. This should clue us in to the fact that we can trim defense bonuses from elsewhere to invest in a 6x gaussians. This is 5 added slots spent for 3.19% ranged def and very little else. Pass! When slotting 2 different sets in the same power like this, your slot-efficiency takes a hit. You spent 5 slots, but you only get 4 set bonuses. There are many valid applications for split slotting, but it should always be done carefully, and you should always ask if the same bonus can be obtained elsewhere. 6x eradication would give valuable aoe def that may enable cutting less-efficient slots elsewhere. Defense enhancement in phalanx fighting only increases the bonus you get when friendly toons are close to you. It does not enhance the always-on portion. The build is overcapped on 10% regen bonuses anyway, so we can trim a slot of lotg here. I'm always curious what forumites see in Underwhelming Farce, a mainstay of lackluster builds everywhere. The proc itself is good, the full set is only competitive under very niche circumstances. Assault is weak on brutes because of the low brute damage scalar (0.75). On the hardest hitting power, swoop, assault only adds 10 damage. For the same reason, assault core hybrid should not be taken on brutes; you are better off with radial instead, since radial uses melee_tempdamage which is 1.0 on all AT's. I love how you stop short of the 6th piece bonus for 4.5% SL res. Forumites and passing up extremely powerful set bonuses, name a more matching pair. This set is not bad if you take all 6 pieces (it would then give a respectable 1.35% Resistance Per Added Slot), taking advantage of the SL res to trim slots from Deflection. 5 pieces puts you in the same circle of sinners as people who slot 3x armageddon. Finally: something that is not strictly a mistake, but should really be made clear when giving builds to other people - the hyperstrike build needs ageless to work. Without ageless, net eps is only +1.08. * * * And now, my fixes: Now that is a respectable amount of rech, and I didn't even need to toggle on any incarnate powers to inflate the stats! For 30% less regen, this build sports superior dps, rech and resistances, and has a more balanced defense spread backed up by solid -def resistance. It is designed to use the same incarnate loadout as the hyperstrike build: with ageless core T4, you will have nearly permahaste (~121s rech) as long as you always remember to click them both together as well as nearly-doublestacked AD. It can do a chain of chop > gash > swoop > (small gap after the first minute of ageless). Note that the eradications must be boosted +5. As a lv30 set, it has poor enhancement value. I want to point out some subtle optimizations here, notably, the SL res in aegis. Often, investing in res set bonuses over enhancing the actual res toggles is a bad idea. However, shields always suffer some build tension in Deflection since they want the SL res but also need to fit a lot of defense sets. Using the SL res from Aegis allows us to spend fewer slots enhancing res in deflection. The loss of EN res by not slotting an unbreakable guard is made up by slotting 5x basilisk's. In turn, the aoe def and rech from both these sets dovetail nicely with our build goals above. Spotting synergistic interactions like this can be very helpful to achieving multiple build goals simultaneously. Would I play this build myself? Nope! My own axe/shields are built around a different alpha/incarnate loadout. I recommend you trim back some EN res; there's not much difference between 61% and 51% EN res, or for that matter 44% and 34%, the numbers you'll get without owts on (which only has unenhanceable 33% uptime). With those slots, you could invest in a prevmed proc, a kismet, get some health enhancement in true grit, more regen etc. which will lead to overall more survivability. Doing so is left as an exercise for the reader. Hint: consider a travel power-less build (since you don't need slow res as much on a defense toon) and/or experiment with a different epic.

Modern ice/storm attack chains are generally T1>BIB>T1>FR or T2>BIB>FR (which is better depends on procs and rech). Taking both the T1 and T2 blast hurts ST damage by occupying more of the attack chain's animation time with lower-DPA attacks and by increasing slot expenditure. Attacks are very slot-intensive. Taking more attacks than you need means fewer slots devoted to set-muling, utility powers, or even slotting the attacks properly. On the other hand, if one wants more attacks for reasons of concept or subjective playfeel then by all means do so. I completely respect, and strongly encourage, sacrificing character power for subjective enjoyment.

What you encountered is very nice when it happens, though not reliably replicable through any means I found. It was fairly common in early-mid 2008 for teams who could not outdps the healing nictus and/or tank Rom and the mire nictus to attempt to pull just one of the AV's away using ranged attacks, with results that are charitably described as mixed. I used the oldschool way of Longbow lore pets, one of the better pets that deal -regen. Plant Lore Longbow pets (command to stay, otherwise the Cataphract tries to melee) some distance from Rom and immobilize him within their range with epic immobs. However, in the ITF this is still a very torturous process since every 25% of Rom's health the ambush spawns, and they inevitably kill the lore pets, so I would then retreat and wait for them to recharge. You further need to attract aggro from the mire nictus before the longbow cataphract can damage it with its aoe grenade and then kite it around while shooting rom. If the cataphract grenades aggro it, it will kill the lore pets in a single hit. I used a 2nd build specifically for it, because sentinel epic immobs are extremely costly. There are very likely more efficient strategies out there; however, I've long since lost interest in no insps no temps soloing of anything.

The most serious issues have been dealt with already, so I will just emphasize a few salient points: 1. Make sure you slot KB2KD in your attacks, especially aoe attacks such as trip mine and nova. Energy is only a mid-tier dps set, because it is a top-tier soft control and mitigation set. If you don't abuse this mitigation, you are not properly exploiting the set's unique advantages. You should consult the Nemu build above, because it does include these procs. 2. You should take and use aim even though you already have targeting drone. Aim, when slotted with the gaussian's chance for build up proc, has a very high change of proccing it on demand (can be capped at 90%, depending on how much rech you have in aim). Aim-BU combined with your nuke and other powers such as tripmine delivers a powerful broadside that instantly wipes all non-bosses reducing incoming damage and mezzes, and Aim can be popped while moving in to engage ensuring minimal exposure to return fire. Aim-BU is a key reason why blasters are overpowered in the current meta; abuse ruthlessly, and make devs cry. 3. While energy is indeed one of the primaries that doesn't need haste for its ST attack chain, haste is nevertheless very useful for it and for all blaster primaries that have a 145s or longer base cooldown nuke. The reason is that at permahasten levels of rech, the nuke's recharge shortens to ~40s or less which is close to the amount of time it takes most teams to kill a spawn and move to the next, allowing you to use it almost every engagement. If you go from nuking every other spawn to nuking every spawn, that is twice the number of nukes used (a +100% increase). This demonstrates the power of hitting a performance breakpoint. 4. In your original build, you are not 8s away from permahasten, nor will a single FF proc perma it. Mids naively assumes that all rech buffs are permanent, even when they are not. When hasten is not permanent, only part of its duration is buffed by its own +rech and therefore its actual recharge is longer than what Mids displays. A lot of people have no idea how to deal with rech buffs that are only active for part of the power's duration and can only hope that things will work out in practice. The math, and its derivation, is discussed in detail here, however I will just inform you that given the following: Your global rech that is permanent: 83.8% Rech enhancement in hasten: 95.9% Hasten base cooldown time: 450s Hasten's buff: 70.0% for 120s ...Hasten, in your original build, will recharge in 130.85s. If you get a single FF proc during that time, this shortens to 129.07s, assuming that the proc runs for its full duration (not cut off by Hasten completing its recharge). Simple algebra will show that the number of procs required to make hasten permanent with this amount of global rech is 7, assuming they all run for their full duration (6 procs gives a recharge of 120.13s). In general, if you are already familiar with the more well-known recharge formula of Recharge = Cooldown / Real time elapsed, a single FF proc is mathematically equivalent to shaving 5s off the power's base (not remaining) cooldown. Hence, for hasten, recharge required for permahasten = 450 / 120 = 3.75, or 375% (but the power natively has 100%, so you need another +275% from enhancements and global rech, including Hasten's own +70%). If we expect to get a single FF proc during those 120s, the rech required decreases to 445 / 120 = 370.08%, or +270.08% from enhancements and global rech.