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Unclemarty

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Everything posted by Unclemarty

  1. The best proc builds will compensate for what you are giving up by slotting procs. Basically when you slot a power with 4+ damage procs instead of a “traditional” slotting method you are getting more damage out of the power, yet giving up these things: - set bonuses - endurance reduction - accuracy - recharge (minor issue) The set bonus vs procs discussion is a lot so I’ll just focus on the endurance, accuracy, and recharge considerations. —-endurance—- If you spam attacks at full endurance cost you’re generally gonna have a bad time if you don’t have some other way of getting endurance. slotting stamina can only do so much. Some non-attack sets will have ways of getting endurance or sometimes significantly reducing endurance cost for a little bit. Conversely, endurance hungry sets don’t play nice with proc builds because you will just run out of endurance faster. —-accuracy and to hit—- when you slot procs in your attacks you generally don’t hit ED cap for accuracy. This can be troublesome especially if you are facing +4 level enemies you may whiff a lot. Luckily Tohit is more important than accuracy and there are plenty of ways to get to hit though powers. Tactics is one easy way. Look for sets with powers that give some long lasting +to hit bonus to support your procced out attacks (build up dosent last long enough imo). Rage was mentioned in this thread as a good example power that allows you to almost completely ignore accuracy slotting. —recharge— this one may or may not be a concern depending on your attack set. If you aren’t slotting recharge in your powers you may find yourself with odd gaps in your attack rotation or be forced to take a bad/low dpa power to get a complete attack rotation. Again, depends on the set and what you are trying to do. Global recharge will help with this, but wait when slotting procs you may not be getting recharge from set bonuses. Look for powers that will give you global recharge bonuses. Also slot luck of the gambler +recharge in your defense powers. FWIW I generally proc bomb powers with 4 damage procs, 1 damage enhancement and 1 acc/damage. I don’t bother with anything that isn’t a damage proc for an attack power TLDR It’s hard to evaluate proc effectiveness in a power in a vacuum. when evaluating a proc build it’s important to pay attention to what’s going on in your non-attack set. See if it is giving you endurance and accuracy and maybe recharge
  2. Is there some sort of AE mission that can replace trapdoor as a benchmark?
  3. When evaluating whether to load up a power with procs or not its also important to keep in mind what's going on with your non-attack set too. Generally, when slotting procs, you're giving up accuracy, recharge, or endurance reduction. So a non-attack set that brings those things back into your build is going to support your procced out power better.
  4. Many people have been using the trapdoor mission to test clear speed, however It seems like this mission is only available for max level characters. Is there a good way to test clear speed on a lower level character? Similar to trapdoor, ideally a mission for clear speed testing would have: consistent size and placement of spawns variety of enemy damage types straightforward map geometry (please no caves 😱) Anyone know of a mission like this that would fit the bill? Maybe some sort of custom AE mission?
  5. Great ideas! I probably should have specified that I'm looking at the late 20's - early 30's levels. I'm interested in experimenting with IO builds and I believe this is around the level range where IOs become more effective than SO. If possible, I'm looking for sets that can offer good mitigation and attacks by taking only a few powers. This way I don't have to spread slots out to so many powers. So i'm looking for: Sets with a complete attack chain in a few powers are a plus Attacks that offer some sort of damage mitigation are a plus sets that offer some sort of endurance management are a plus Thanks!
  6. I'm trying to come up with builds that do well on harder difficulty content at low levels. Primaries and secondary power sets are not all equal. Some get important powers early and some get them later. For example, super strength gets two key powers, rage and foot stomp, quite late. What are some "early blooming" sets that get most of their important powers early, or even have skippable powers later on?
  7. If you're interested in knockdown instead of knockback this thread has some good ideas: I eventually settled on a fire/storm controller for this idea. The idea is that once bonfire, tornado, and lightning storm are set up they can knockdown while you're casting other powers. knockdown while you knockdown! Bonfire is particularly strong because it has such a fast recharge you can have multiple up per spawn.
  8. This build will do well in pretty much any normal content. However, if you wanted to improve your survivability and damage a bit here are some suggestions in no particular order. I'd slot radiation siphon for damage. You could do some sort of damage/heal hybrid slotting but just slotting it for heals is a waste of an attack imo. 6 slot devastating blow. 5 slotted as is, its not capped for acc/end/rech since you are already 5 slotting fusion, try 6 slot fusion with Gaussians instead. The 6th set bonus provides a nice blanket of overall defense. since you are already 5 slotting hoarfrost, try 6 slotting it with preventative medicine instead. Preventative medicine provides better set bonuses than doctored wounds, and the 6 slot bonus is nice recharge. For tough and permafrost, I'd either 4 slot these with unbreakable guard or 3 slot with aegis if you want more fire defense. Right now, they are not fully enhanced. Of course include the gladiator armor and steadfast protection uniques somewhere. speaking of uniques, you are missing a few. At minimum, I'd aim to include Kismet, Shield wall, and Numinia's Convalescence somewhere. these are popular because you get a lot of value out of a single enhancement. I'd drop physical perfection. you likely are not going to be having endurance issues and unenhanced its not providing much value. You could choose a utility power instead or simply take stealth to slot one more Luck of the Gambler global recharge. If you do happen to have endurance issues for whatever reason, try slotting stamina with perf. shifter +end and slot radiation siphon with theft of essence + end. You could also slap the miracle unique in health. To adopt the suggestions above, id recommend stripping slots from boxing first, then chilling embrace and taunt.
  9. I don’t have a build for this exact combo but I’d recommend searching the tanker forms here for Dark/x builds and x/spines builds. Then try some experimentation yourself by smashing those two builds together. You could even search the scrapper and brute forms for this combo too. once you have a build drafted the community here could probably provide more specific feedback if you come back and link your draft build.
  10. This build will do well in pretty much any normal content. If you really wanted to push the boundaries on survivability here are some suggestions; Slot luck of the gambler +recharge in all your defense powers that can take it. It's very powerful because the bonus on that one enhancement is equivalent to some 5-6 slot set bonuses. Like all bonuses, it can stack up to 5 times, so if you have 5 defense powers you can slot it 5 times across all the powers. This is part of the reason why so many people run maneuvers. I like to slot defense powers with at least 1 LOTG and 4 Shield wall because the set bonuses on shield wall are better than LOTG imo. Fold space - I'd throw 2 recharge IOs in this power too I'd recommend changing all your 4 slots of gladiator armor to 4 slot unbreakable guard. You can get closer to the 45% softcap for melee defense with 4 slot unbreakable guard. Of course keep the gladiator armor unique slotted somewhere. Energy armor generally already has a lot of endurance management tools, so you're likely not getting much value from running physical perfection and conserve power. You could take another epic pool for more attacks or you could grab more pool powers instead. If you do want to slot more attacks, I'd remove slots from kick and power sink. You have good slow resist already but you can easily cap it by 2 or 3 slotting some of the winter attack IOs. For example, consider 2 slotting avalanche into lightning field. I'd recommend 3 slotting energize with 1 preventative medicine unique and 2 recharge IOs. The preventative medicine proc is special and different because it will proc regardless of where it is in your build, so it dosen't need to be in an "always on" power. Hope this helps!
  11. The game is definitely not balanced around IOs but I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm sure there are large swaths of the playerbase that do not engage with the IO system at all. They either slot what drops from mobs or maybe go on a shopping spree and buy some SO from a vendor. And that's fine. The IO system is very convoluted so it makes sense why someone who plays casually would not want to engage with it. But, as many others have pointed out, now we have a situation where characters who are well built with IOs can stomp through 4x8 content no problem solo. This isn't necessarily a problem either, but it creates a dynamic of "speedy" gameplay that makes teamwork less important. On your tricked out IO character when was the last time you had to pull enemies a few at a time instead of just jumping in and blowing things up? I don't think reducing the availability of IOs is the answer though. It would just widen the gap between players that have billions of inf and players that are just starting out and learning the IO system. People want to play with their fancy builds but they want a challenge. I think the best solution is to continue developing and proliferating additional challenging content to meet the power of IO builds. Hard mode ITF and Aeon are a step in the right direction. I'd love to see similar hard mode settings proliferated to other TF too. But more importantly I think making a reward structure for challenging content at lower levels is important too. We know players can easily solo 4x8 at level 50, but can they do the same at 40, 30, or even 20? What if there was a special challenge flashback that granted special rewards for completing hard content at lower levels? For example a lvl 50 team could flashback and do a lvl 30 mission series with 1* hard mode rules applied (or maybe some other challenge setting). The rewards for completing this could be additional merits, incarnate salvage, chance for rare recipe, badges, etc...
  12. This is a great writeup and consideration about mezzes. Ideally, I'd like to avoid leaning on clarion to give myself flexible options for the destiny slot when I hit 50. I'm probably going to take rune of protection but will need some additional mez coverage somewhere. Speaking of sorcery, is arcane bolt worth taking and slottting on a blaster, even if I only activate it when its ready to cirt? Thanks for this advice on DP and MC. I'm debating between fire and DP for primaries. It seems like fire would do more damage but DP has more utility with cc? Also comparing the T9 powers.. would hail of bullets or inferno be up every spawn? For Martial combat, does burst of speed work like spring attack from the leaping pool? Also does reaction time need enemies around for the absorb to trigger? Trying to figure out the differences between martial and ninja. Seems like blaster has a lot more to consider when developing a build compared to other AT..
  13. This is a pretty good build but I'm curious why are you taking energy mastery for physical perfection and focused accuracy? IMO the tohit protection from focused accuracy is more suited for resist based builds that are actually taking hits. For SR you are avoiding hits altogether so those debuffs are less likely to land and thus focused accuracy seems unnecessary. You could probably use your epic pool to take more attacks instead. For example, you could grab ball lightning or dark obliteration if you want another aoe. If you wanted to slot more attacks this way I'd remove slots from stamina and blood thirst. the Gaussian build up proc is probably also better in blood thirst rather than a toggle power.
  14. I don't have much experience with blasters in general and the ones I have made have mainly been hover blasters. But lurking around on the forms I've seen a number of posts & guides on a playstyle of "blapping" or "jousting" (I'm not sure if these terms are interchangeable). Basically, it seems to be moving in and out of melee range to hit hard with melee attacks but avoid enemy attacks by quickly moving out of range. I'd like to experiment and learn this playstyle but I need some help choosing the right sets. I'll describe in the following scenario on how I'd like to approach and take down mobs. I'd like to lead with a pbaoe nuke and quickly move to range. Then, at range, I'd like to fire off some ranged aoe and cones. By this point I'd like to finish the remaining bosses with single target melee and maybe a high dpa singe target ranged attack. I'd like to be able to play solo at higher difficulty options. I'm not expecting a smooth ride at 4x8 though. I do not want to hang out in melee for extended periods. I do not want to use long animating pbaoe that are not like a T9 nuke. I want to be able to move fluidly in and out of melee I do not want my sustain power to be reliant on enemies nearby. Ideally I'd like some CC synergy between powers so that a boss can be controlled (I'm not sure if this is possible on a blaster) I'd consider using a power to soften up mobs before jumping in with the T9 nuke (such an bonfire). This build would primarily be for solo Enhancement cost is not an issue Any advice would be appreciated!
  15. Overall this looks like a pretty decent build but there are some improvements that could be made. Assuming inf cost for this build is not an issue, here are some suggestions. Generally, on a tanker, it is good to build for some slow resist. This is because slows will not only cut into your damage, they will hurt your survivability since a lot of your mitigation is based on click powers. 2 or 3 slotting winter sets, although expensive, offer an easy way to get some slow resist. For example, replace pounding fisticuffs with 2 slotting blistering cold in contaminated strike. The base damage on irradiated ground is quite low, so I don't recommend slotting for damage here. Instead load the power up with damage procs and -res procs. Irradiated ground is uniquely good for procs because they have a chance to trigger every 5 seconds when the blob is spawned on the ground instead of every 10 seconds like a normal toggle. The AOE damage for this build also seems low considering you only have atom smasher as an aoe and some minor damage toggles. Consider taking proton sweep unless you really don't like melee cones, or grab an aoe from your epic (recommend soul mastery for dark obliteration) unless you really want energy mastery. Unless you are seriously having endurance issues, I'm skeptical about the value you are getting from energy mastery. If you do want to keep these powers. I recommend 2 slotting conserve power with recharge reduction. Also slot focused accuracy with end reduction since it saps end like crazy. Your slotting is inconsistent for set bonuses. For example you mix it up between 4 slot and 5 slot unbreakable guard or 3 and 4 slot Numia's convalescence. Without knowing more about your specific build goals here's how I would change slotting: 4 slot unbreakable guard. The 5th set bonus isn't great and if you want psi resist, just add the impervium armor unique instead. 3 slot numia's unless you really need the 4th slot to hit ED softcaps. The 6% heal bonus isn't great 4 slot shield wall. The E/N resist is really good Regarding arcane bolt, you may not notice force feedback procing that much because of all the recharge reduction enhancements in this power. If you wanted more recharge across your build the most efficient way to do that would be to take more defense powers and slot Luck of the Gambler 7.5% global recharge. you'll get better mitigation that way too. Regarding uniques... Miracle unique should go in an "always on" power. This is commonly slotted in Health. You probably don't need to slot this if you aren't having end issues though. Recommend taking the preventative medicine unique. This can go anywhere. The set bonuses for preventative medicine are actually good so you may want to consider 6 slotting this if you are going to commit so much slots to healing powers Slot theft of essence + endurance unique and watch your end issues go away. 10% end is a huge amount for this proc. This proc could go in DNA siphon for example. This is a personal preference, but I like celerity +stealth in sprint, It gives you another option to stealth mission objectives. Hope this helps!
  16. Hey cool data. Were “build up” type powers used for this test? For example for SS was rage used? Or double stacked?
  17. I'm curious to know if and how people are building for psi resist. Many sets have a "psi hole" in their resistance profile, but I find In my own builds I think of psi resist as a luxury that I often can't get to. I find I run out of slots prioritizing other things like defense, S/L resist, E/N resist or even global recharge; however, I'm worried that I might be overlooking psi resist too much. Do you slot impervious armor + psi resist in all your resistance powers? Do you chase set bonuses with psi resist? What primaries is it worth it to chase psi resist? Is there content in the game that validates psi resist as a worthy build goal at the potential cost of other things? Some niche enemy groups have a lot of psi attacks but overall it seems like an uncommon damage type. If building for hard mode content or facing AVs, is psi present enough to build for it? I placed this in the Tanker section but I think it's also a valid question for brutes, scrappers, or anyone else that takes a lot of hits. Do you build for psi resist in other AT?
  18. Here are some specific suggestions in no particular order: regenerative tissue and miracle uniques are best suited for a toggle power or always on power like health. Preventative medicine +absorb is special and weird and will trigger regardless of where it is in your build when you are low health. So it can go into spirit ward instead. You're not getting much value from 3 slotting taunt. Recommend 1 slotting it with your choice of range, recharge or end reduction 4 slotting shield wall offers a great 4.5% E/N resistance. A great way to add damage on tanks is to fill an attack with procs instead of "traditional" slotting strategies. Long recharge powers will trigger procs more often than short attack powers, so I'd use Mercurial blow as a set mule and load up other attacks with procs instead. I believe you have enough single target powers to have a complete single target attack chain by using procs and avoiding recharge reduction enhancements. You could also experiment with adding procs to your aoe powers but you might not have a continuous aoe attack chain if you replace recharge reduction enhancements with procs. You could drop combat jumping for dark obliteration if you wanted another aoe but some people really like the movement that combat jumping offers. Regarding whether Rad or SR is better it really depends. SR critical weakness is against autohit mechanics and enemies with very high tohit (like recluse with his buff towers). SR shines in debuff heavy content because it has so much defense debuff resistance. Other sets like Rad may face cascading defense failure if unsupported. Tanker (Super Reflexes - Staff Fighting) Skull Crusher_rev1.mbd
  19. On a quick glance this build looks quite tough already. Do you want to build with mostly teaming or solo in mind? What kind of content are you doing that you are noticing its not tanky enough? Are you building this for hard mode content, custom AE content, or just general play? If you give some more context on your build goals it would help us provide specific feedback. One thing about SR is that it has scaling resists that kick in when you're health is below 60%. To take advantage of those resists you don't always need to be at high health, so when you take damage don't immediately eat inspirations to heal it up. You should be able to play comfy at low health, especially if you cycle through your +resistance powers appropriately. The only hitpoint that matters is the last one 🙂
  20. This is great data Ston, thanks for taking the time to do some testing! Do you have any files for the builds that were tested? I'm quite surprised that all attacks had a 95% chance to hit, even when slotting no accuracy enhancements.... Even with tactics I always thought that some accuracy would be needed. Also, would these builds completely fall apart without Ageless? I've been experimenting with proc builds too and it always seems like endurance management is an issue. Without ageless or chewing blue inspirations constantly I'm not sure how some primaries would stay fighting with 0 end reduction.
  21. For multiple builds, has anyone experimented with a traditional slotted build and a proc slotted build? So instead of slotting sets in the attacks, you'd slot procs. The tradeoff would be sacrificing mitigation and utility from set bonuses and instead gaining a bit more damage. I'm curious about how these builds might differ in terms of power picks and also the situations these slotting strategies would be used (solo vs team for example).
  22. So the thing about procs in toggles is its complicated... I'd refer to the various procs articles in the Unofficial Homecoming wiki. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Procs_Per_Minute Some self buff procs are good in toggles that affect yourself, not auras that hit enemies. For example its common to slot panacea proc in health and performance shifter proc in endurance because, as you mentioned, it has a chance to proc all the time. The thing about these self buffing toggles is that they do not have an area factor (because they only affect yourself). If you look at the formulas in the procs per minute article, you see that the proc chance is reduced the larger a power's aoe. So because a power is both a toggle and an aoe it is a bad candidate for procs because of how the formula works. And yet some click aoe powers are good to proc because click powers use a different formula than toggles. For example an offence focused build might put damage procs in dark regeneration and that would work well. In general here is a good rule of thumb for knowing when to slot procs: procs in long recharge powers will yield a higher proc chance than short recharge powers. procs in aoes involve a tradeoff, on one hand the aoe hits multiple enemies. on the other hand the chance to proc is lower in aoes because of the area factor. This is somewhat balanced by point #1 because aoe powers tend to have longer recharge. Slotting recharge in a power with procs will reduce the proc chance Using an alpha incarnate power that reduces recharge will reduce the proc chance of the affected powers. So typically a "proc bomb" power will have 3-6 damage procs and the rest of the enhancements some combination of damage/accuracy/endurance. IMO its all needlessly complicated.... but its the system we have 🤷‍♂️
  23. This is a good build already but here are some minor suggestions: IMO the best way to 4 slot unbreakable guard for toggles is one of the following: (Res) (Res/End) (Res/End/Rech) (End/Rech) OR (+Max HP) (Res) (Res/End) (Res/End/Rech) Basically swap the Rech/Res enhancement for End/Rech because you are already hitting the cap for +resistance enhancement already. This slotting will give you better endurance discount on the power with almost no change to resistance. I'd take out the slots in cloak of fear or skip the power altogether. Its an end hog and you can better use the slots elsewhere for mitigation via set bonuses. Regardless, procs generally don't trigger often in toggle powers so you might not get much mileage out of the current slotting. Theft of essence proc can be added to dark regeneration. This should give you a nice end boost when you use that power and lots of enemies are around. You don't have to fully invest in the winter sets for them to be valuable to this build in the form of slow resist. Slow resist is really good for tankers because it lets you shrug off debuffs that will slow down the recharge of your mitigation powers and attacks. Here are some low effort ideas for including slow resist: Slot winters gift unique in your travel power 2 slot boxing or brawl with blistering cold. (of course you could 5 or 6 slot blistering cold in a power you actually use if you wanted to invest more heavily) 2 slot avalanche in shadow maul to replace fury of the gladiator. Fury of the gladiator set bonuses aren't that great for PVE anyway. If you wanted to keep the KB resist you're getting there, just slot blessing of the zephyr in your travel power to compensate. Good Luck!
  24. This looks really good! some suggestions without changing power picks: you might want to try too squeeze in some more slow resist. Bio has quite a bit of active mitigation with click powers, so -rech debuffs can be bad news. Consider 2 slotting avalanche somewhere (probably in place of obliteration in dna siphon). If you are having any end issues sat all, you could add the theft of essence proc in parasitic aura, it should give you a bunch of endurance when its activated when lots of enemies are around. Celerity +stealth can be added in sprint. This is a personal preference but I like the option of stealthing objectives if needed. If you wanted full invisibility to stack with celerity you could swap combat jumping for stealth. I recommend replacing unbreakable guard with reactive defenses since you are building for typed defenses not positional. One more slot in weave would let you 4 slot shield wall for an easy 4.5 E/N resist Try to slot kismet unique. the tooltip says +accuracy but its actually +tohit which is pretty good. I think bio has the end management tools to support a proc based build if you wanted a more radical change. I believe testing has shown proc builds tend to do more damage on tankers than traditional builds, but I know some people don't like losing the set bonuses in their attacks.
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