1seanv23

If you want a secondary that can run with little button mashing - I'd pick energy melee. My Fire/Em is the only blaster I've ever taken to 50, and he is what I was hoping for. Sustained and burst damage from the primary, aoe, and burst damage from the secondary. Put energize on autofire for perma regen and never running out of end - I mean never running out of end again. Then just click boost range as it comes off cooldown and you have the range to easily stay at range blasting mobs with combat jumping, or you can mix it up in melee. My guy has softcapped s/l defense and close to soft capped energy defense. With energize constantly regenning and the amount of sustained damage he puts out - he tears through mobs. I want to say my Em/Inv scrapper can drop bigger hits, but no other toon I have pumps out as much sustained raw damage, and can do it ranged or melee.

For single target damage my guess is /energy and /elec are the two best for burst damage. With a blaster I'd be more interested in dps with the primary, and burst for the secondary - if damage was my primary goal with the blaster. I've heard nothing but good things about /elec and am considering rolling one, but I know my Fire/Em destroys.

I just want to say thank you to all the people that are actively working on and improving this game. It was my first MMO and the only MMO that I still routinely come back to play.

I've got a spines/ice armor scrapper at 48 that I am liking WAY more than I thought I would. I've got all the basic heal, regen, end io's in him, with a few defense sets and lotg's - so he's nowhere near maxed yet, but is generally an extremely strong solo character. Since I retired my spines/fire farmer in favor of rad/fire, I'd forgotten that despite the overall slowish feel of the set - I really like spines. This combo kicks ass. It slows, reduces damage, reduces recharge, does a generally less resisted damage type, and having two damage auras really rounds out the aoe damage, with the auras often ticking off the last sliver of health, and Impale often picking off a slowly running away straggler. He does have a slightly controller'ish feeling. Also really tough overall. If I get into some trouble I pop Icy Bastion and am basically unkillable while it's up while completely regenning my hp and end no matter how swarmed with enemies thanks to the heavy layering of defense, resist, and regen + hp from Hoarfrost. For a combo that I know kicks MAJOR ass - Energy Melee/Invulnerability. AoE is weakish, but single target is top tier with top tier survivability. This combo will do fantastic on +4/3-5. The reason not going /8 is because with weakish aoe it'll take longer than you'd like to clear large packs, but packs of 4-6 mobs will get blasted down hard with your single target attacks. This combo will also make a good AV/boss killer toon. My Em/Inv scrapper feels almost like stalker because of the way he deletes bosses and small groups of mobs - yet he feels almost like my Em/Inv brute on live that was practically unkillable. The moderate tradeoff on survivability with less hp and s/l resist is more than made up for with the incredibly hard hitting single target damage. I don't think anything hit's harder than a Gaussian's Build up proc + build up + energy transfer. A stalker will do more total and sustained damage thanks to Assassins Strike, but for sheer damage from individual attacks - the scrapper hits the actual hardest.

Invulnerability really lives up to its name with io's and incarnates. It's been proven to be top tier. Not counting granite armor which is the toughest of all, but has so many drawbacks nobody wants to bother with it, /Inv has proven to be top 3 in any comparison of survivability, and #1 for a lot of content. Maxed out, the only thing that can pose a potential threat to it is psionic damage and defense debuffs - both of which are problems for most other armors. The armors that don't have an issue with psionic don't bring the same level of general toughness to everything else. Most damage in the game is S/L, or has a S/L component to it, so having capped resists to the most common damage types is not to be underestimated. Outside of tankers, many armor sets can get up to 50-65% S/L resists with io's etc, but that's ALOT less resistance than 75-90%. Dull Pain is criminally underrated. Invincibility is very strong in the hardest content because if you're already sitting at soft cap (45%) defense with one mob in range, playing on +4/8 is going to constantly saturate Invincibility's defense buff, putting you well over soft cap, which will allow your 50% defense debuff resistance to have more effect. Also, imo, the Invincibility aura looks awesome.

I mained an Em/Inv brute on live - fully io'd. He was pretty much unkillable. With the recent positive changes to energy melee - he'd be even better. But, there's an even better option now - Em/Inv scrapper. Not as much hp/regen, and takes 25% more damage to s/l than the brute, but with a higher damage modifier, better response to damage buffs, and criticals - plus WAY better ATO's - no contest. A maxed Em/Inv scrapper will do stupid damage while having plenty of survivability. But, to answer the OP's question - I would nominate DM/EA as my overall pick for most powerful build. Why? A couple of reasons: 1. Run a maxed IO build on mid's and compare it to a maxed /INV build. VERY comparable except the giant heal from dull pain and the capped S/L resist. People tend to underestimate Dull Pain. You use it at like 30-40% hp to heal all the way back to full hp + hit the hp cap. Now you're back to square one + 40-50% more hp. Anyhow, tangent. 2. DM/EA has the heal from siphon life, the heal and regen from energize - and the best tier 9 in the game - Overload, which acts like Elude + Dull Pain. I would argue that Icy Bastion is more awesome because of it's frequent up time, but with Burnout you can have back to back Overloads - which isn't just great for pvp, but 6 minutes of capped hp, plus high regen from Energize + 3200hp + siphon life? How is that not awesome for pvp? 3. You are so pretty people cower before your touch. 4. /EA has only one major weakness - not counting defense debuffs - psionic damage. Since it doesn't have positional defense - psionic attacks will chew you up on +4/8. I've run maxed /EA so don't nobody claim that it doesn't struggle with psi. Other than that, super powerful. 5. Outside of double Overload I would pick /Inv. 6. You can tell I really like /Inv.

I maxed out an /Inv and /WP brute on beta. My testing agrees with Snarky. /Inv is tougher when fully io'd + Incarnate. /WP is a very strong set, but against the toughest challenges /Inv pulls ahead.

I forgot to add that powerboost + power thrust is hilarious.

Fully io'd I would guess the /Inv would be stronger due to the defense and +hp. I've had a fully io'd /Inv brute, stalker, and scrapper. My brute was about as tough as anything I've ever seen in game except a fully io'd tanker version (obviously not counting granite armor). That said, on beta I made a psi/dark stalker and maxed him out on io's and he was very strong. The cornerstone of the set appeared to be the big heal, so I slotted it with the chance for endurance and had the build focus on getting something like 25% melee or s/l defense. Can't remember at this point. I don't know how hard it is offhand to get defense to s/l/e or m/r/aoe on /dark up to at least 30%. My best guess would be to focus on maximizing +hp and recharge to fire off the heal as much as possible. Dark melee is a very strong pairing with /Inv and arguably offers it more because of the heal attack and -tohit and fear to add to the layered mitigation of /Inv. But dark/dark will be very thematic and strong as well. I'd say go with whatever suits your goals best.

Katana has dps. Once your recharge is really high, t4 musculature, and ATO's - the single target dps is very strong and crunchy! My current kat/sr is closing in on 40 (previously had a 50 fully pimped out) and I have a force feedback proc in both his big hitters. Already I can cycle through 4 attacks easily with little downtime - without Hasten yet. I do have 5 LotG though. I can't remember, but I think you can get it to the point where you just run Golden Dragonfly, Soaring Dragon, and The Lotus Drops. Place a +50 crit proc in Soaring Dragon, lot's of hard hitting Golden's. Place Guassian's Build up proc in Build up and you're hitting REALLY hard. The only thing I have that wrecks harder for single target is my em/inv scrapper.

Everlasting is my server too - perhaps we'll run into each other sometime. Great guide. Reminds me of the old days.

I've considered rolling one. I think it would be a solid combo. I'd recommend getting your s/l or melee defense up to 30% or above. Then probably focus on maximizing hp and recharge. Throw a theft of essence into the heal to refill your blue bar. Defense will make the armor alot tougher and buy you more time to fire off your big heal. Hp will give you more time - to fire off your big heal. Recharge will give you more opportunities to use your big heal and elec's awesome nuke. I've played a psi/dark stalker fully io'd out on beta and he can run +4/8 missions np. Laughs at Arachnos. A brute would do even better.

I'm planning on making a /Dark brute. The combos that interest me are elec/dark, fire/dark, and tw/dark. One thing I really like about /Dark, is that the armor effects look badass. Truly a nightmare walking - but can be re-colored to achieve interesting looks. This is helpful if designing cool looking costumes isn't your strong suit - a bonus. Plus, it makes weapons look REALLY cool - the contrast between the armor. Anything that glows will look great with /Dark. Elec/Dark because it'll look cool and have decent aoe. Fire/Dark because it looks badass and does great damage. TW/Dark - I like the idea of a giant weapon twirling around a pillar of smoke and skulls.

The first farming brute I ever made was a dm/fire. If my memory serves me right, he worked really well. Years later, here on Homecoming, I first made a spines/fire. I like him a lot and think he was the fastest - for me. For some stupid reason I deleted him. I then built an ss/fire which I did not like - at all. Did not like dealing with the rage crash in a farming scenario, and I love footstomp, but hearing it a bagillion times in a row got annoying. Currently farming with a rad/fire. Seems pretty good, but I've only got him lightly kitted out - nothing real fancy. Might re-roll a spines/fire or something else and seriously pimp it out since I know I'm not maximizing my farming speed with the limited io investment atm.

Necro/Dark was the first and only MM I took to 50 on live. Always seemed to be underrated to me. Not much I couldn't handle. Only the most pita AV's gave me real trouble. Pretty sure I'll be rolling one again soon.