Coyote

Yeah, I'm kinda agreeing with this... Cold has much better End management, so that may be a thing, but it has very little self-defense ability other than -Recharge (and -Damage for a single opponent). Thermal has a self-heal to top up between fights. Both have to depend on IO set bonuses for Defense to solo well, but that works well backed up by heals. My main problem with Thermal is the -Res power is so much weaker than Cold's and you don't get +Recovery, so it's weaker on damage, not survivability.

But I don't think they have -Def powers (I could be wrong on that, though), and the Bots should be soft-capped on Defense. I don't understand why they're being hit so much. Do you have both +Defense pet IOs? Do you have any Defense slotting in your Protector Bots? What is the Defense of Assault Bot once fully shielded and inside your Dispersion Bubble? Protector Bots with a LotG +Recharge and one LotG Defense should be over 12.5% Defense. Two of them on him push it to 25%, the two IOs push it to 35%, and Dispersion Bubble puts him over the softcap. I can see some lucky hits going through, but not a majority of the attacks. I think that all of those Defense sources cover all attacks, without a Psychic damage hole, so it should matter even if his Psy Scream is not properly categorized as AoE.

The Coralax do a lot of damage in melee, because they're damage-oriented mobs. Almost no debuffing or status effects (a bit of knockback). So if you let them close to melee, they will hit Robots hard. They also do mostly Smashing damage, and Robots resist Lethal and Psychic. So they're kind of hard for Robots to fight if they get close. You need to keep them back with knockback powers, Force Bubble if you have it available (probably not). Otherwise a suggestion would be Bodyguard mode with Provoke, and hover above the fight... I think the Coralax may throw coral shards in a cone, and Calystix has Psychic Scream which is also a cone, so pulling the cones to hit a single target at a time would help a lot. This also allows you to use Luck inspirations to affect all incoming attacks, whereas using them on single Robots is not effective. So... use Lucks to increase your personal defense, Hover above the fight, and Provoke all the mobs to focus on you only. Addendum: I soloed him as an AV on a Merc/Traps... he killed me a few times until I figured to pull him to the room of the cavern and use Caltrops to block his summons from coming into melee. Then they were stuck at ranged, I moved the Mercs to the side so the cones wouldn't hit them, and fought him there like that. It worked pretty well, though I had Triage Beacon to help soak up the damage. But he was a true AV, so the EB version may be soloable without a +Regen boost.

I agree with @DSorrow completely on one aspect: damage Procs help lower-damage ATs more than higher-damage. But Defensive set bonuses help lower-defense ATs more than higher-damage ones. It doesn't seem fair to consider an adjustment to damage procs because they help low-damage ATs do more damage... and not adjust Defensive set bonuses because they help low-defense ATs achieve higher defenses. In fact, I think that the outlier in terms of performance is by far a Blaster with soft-cap compared to a Blaster who only uses common IOs, rather than a Defender who uses damage procs versus one who only uses common IOs. The set bonuses help the Blaster increase their survivabiliy five-fold or more, while the damage procs might possibly help the Defender double their damage, but probably not even that much. So the imbalance is much greater on the defensive side of character building, and it seems unreasonable to start by looking at the offensive side of IOs.

Defender. It will work on a Corruptor, but the blast side is better on a Defender due to higher -Res even if lower base damage, the Buff/Debuff is higher on a Defender, and you get the Dark Miasma powers sooner which IMO is an advantage since Sonic Blast doesn't really rely on its later attack powers too much.

Unless you're considering an APP attack as part of the powersets for Defenders/Corruptors, I think you didn't bother to do the math.

True, but good nerf concepts take this into account. I want damage procs "nerfed" by changing their PPM by +1, and lowering their per-activation damage so that the expected DPS over a minute is the same as it currently is. This wouldn't impact those ATs who use them in regular attacks because their baseline damage is low, but by having a lower damage on the longer-recharge powers that are at 90% activation time whether the PPM is 3.5 or 4.5, you lower the DPA of the top performing proc-bomb attacks (both single-target and AoE). But you don't lower the DPA of, say, Arcane Bolt, because that power cycles fast enough that it's below 90%... so the target is top-level proc-bombs, but it doesn't affect baseline attacks with recharges at like 14 seconds or less, or AoEs under 30-40 seconds depending on Recharge slotting, etc. That's one example of how nerfs can be targeted... I'm not saying that they all are going to be like this, but a careful Dev team can generally manage. Look at the TW nerf... it clearly lowered sustained DPS at the top level, but actually made the set play better at lower levels with lower base Recharge. Another example of how a nerf can be targeted to hit the outliers without hurting mid-level performers.

Vanguard are in Mr G's arc also, and so is a pretty rare group, the Awakened. Between the two of them, they make the arc probably even nastier than the Night Ward arc, other than some slightly easier AV fights. I kept going 🤬, what the heck do they have, until I figured out all of their ToHit buffs.

I think it happens only when there is a blue moon on the server.

Softcapping Defense is always helpful, but you do have to make build constraints to get it. I would generally try to make a build for softcapping and see how it plays, as it's easier to re-jig the build for more damage by changing some sets to Recharge and some attack powers to use damage-proc IOs, and then see how that version plays. But that doesn't mean that I would be sold on playing the softcapped version until I tried both.

Looks good other than this, for the following reasons: 1) Most Melee attacks have some Smash or Lethal component to them, so if you soft-cap S/L then you don't really need to worry about Melee. 2) If you're a ranged character and softcap Ranged D, then AoE D is next in importance, because regardless of whether an attack is Smashing, Psionic, or whatever, it will have to go through one of those defenses. Don't worry about S/L unless you're like a Blaster or Dominator and have a mix of melee and ranged attacks. 3) If you do get Ranged D high for a ranged character, it's better to back it up with a Resistance-based armor from the Epic pools, not one of the S/L Defense shields. This is because adding S/L defense against a Ranged attack is superfluous if you already have good Ranged D, but adding some resistance for those attacks that DO hit will be more helpful.

Fold Space has added new life to end-game Controllers. It used to be that on bad teams, controls were still useful, but on good teams they were sometimes worse than not using them because you prevented the Tank from clumping mobs. Now, you can Stun & Immobilize a bunch of targets, and bunch them up right next to the Tank for easy feasting even when the team doesn't need the controls for defense.

I wasn't really, but she totally IS.

Totally support this. My Fire Dom summoning Fiery Orbs is awesome. My Mind Dom, not nearly awesome. He should have a sparky ball of psionic fluff like Penelope Yin.

I can see that, but a Brute generally can't interrupt attacks as well as a Dom can. And they draw more aggro. So a Resist-based Brute will likely get hit a lot more, and could end up having higher mez stacks. But to me, that's fine... the combination of mez Protection, Resistance, and your own Mezzes to limit the incoming mez attacks should prevent much stacking most of the time... and considering that the proposal is for effectively permanent mez protection (and that's a click, too, so it remains active through a mez, so as soon as the stack drops below its protection, you're active again), I don't think they would need a high level. Malta are going to be a pain, but, well, it's Malta and you can still pre-mez them as well as build for defense.

Here is my build. I focused on shooting a lot of arrows, so that I grab most of the aggro and let Bodyguard mode protect me. Second part is to run Glue Arrow with high Slow, so that mobs come at you slowly through a hail of bullets. Traps is best because Caltrops bunches up the mobs for the cones, but I didn't want to run Mercs/Traps again, so the TA version is to use Slows. So far the character went through the new Vahzilok arc blueside at pretty high difficulty (I think +1/x3 or x4) and did it pretty well, so it doesn't feel too weak. MMs do start strong pretty early, though, so I don't expect it to remain a great performer at high levels.

To be honest, 3-4 points of Mez protection as well as 25% Mez Resistance would be quite enough for almost all situations, and if it comes from an inherent power that would basically be permanent out of the box, it's probably as strong as it should be. And it would give room to actually want to build for Mez Resistance from other sources, to minimize the chance that you'll get 2-3 mezzes stacked upon you.

Post in the Dominator forum and you will get plenty of help regarding what perma-Dom means, how to achieve it, and some of the build constraints that it imposes.

Doms are generally fine. Their only general issue is a lack of need for control in the end game. If the usability of Domination were changed so that it were more easily used, I wouldn't mind at all. But between cycling Hasten, Domination, and Power Up at lower levels, even before a Dom is perma, they have options to be powerful in every single Boss encounter unless you're playing at a high enough level to face Bosses in every spawn. And soloing. And if you're doing that before running a perma-Dom, then hopefully you're up to the task. Their defenses are definitely weaker than that of Controllers. And... so? Their offense is stronger. How is this unbalanced? For their concept of being a Control/Damage AT, they do it well. They control well, usually better than Controllers, and they do very good damage with their Damage set. The only think they "lack" is a nuke. Eh, a nuke would be nice, especially on an AT that chases Recharge, but lacking it isn't turning the AT into a low-damage AT. I mean, my AoE attacks on my Doms compare in damage to my Blasters (before Defiance), and the best ranged attacks from Blasters (BIB, Blaze, Snipes) are available to them also.

Well, Blappers get into melee starting at low levels. I'm not sure that a Melee attack set is necessarily that viable (though it might be if one of the powers included were a mez protection power), but an Assault set that starts with a couple of ranged attacks to cover early levels where range is really a defense, and then switches to melee for the back 5-6 powers would be pretty workable.

Proc IOs have a low chance to activate in Radiation Infection, so they're not usually used. But they do have a chance to activate on every mob affected by the power, so while the effect rarely occurs, it will happen more often if you bunch up mobs. Lingering Radiation, because it's not a toggle, actualy does have a good chance to activate procs. Lockdown in CC, like other IOs in toggles, isn't great, but the effect is great... a nice Hold on minions, or the chance to boost the Hold up to Boss level, so it's not a bad choice. Most builds will plan on running at least one of the IOs that grants Stealth, so if you also run Superspeed or Concealment, you get full Invisibility and in most cases don't need Smoke. That said, it is useful for preventing adds, for clicking on glowies without having to clear nearby spawns, etc, so it's not a bad power. And for Fire/Rad, it does stack nicely with Radiation Infection. With Dark Watcher's x4 in both powers, you end up with -45% or so ToHit debuff, as well as 2 5% Recharge bonuses.

Burst of Speed. Not that it's a bad power, but it's not a great PBAoE for its recharge... but it's fun. A lot of fun. I should combine it with Whirlwind someday.

Neither Fire Cages nor Hot Feet are very good with procs. You will have an End problem, but it can be overcome later as you get more Recharge so you can run perma-AM... well slotted with End Mod and Recharge, that can help a lot. Fire Cages is necessary to set up Containment, but over-spamming it can erase Endurance fast. I like an ATO IO for an Orb, and an Acc/Control/End Red ATO, and then maybe a 3slot for Acc/End. No need for more, or slotting for damage. Maybe if you had Fire/Dark, with the drain power to fuel Recovery, but Fire/Rad runs some expensive toggles and Accelerate Metabolism can barely make up for them, and then struggles to help with Hot Feet. It can't also make up for Fire Cage spam.

Guys, be sure to keep this thread going for a while. I want to see how long he lasts....

Fire/Rad can do it, but Fire/Dark is pretty similar and far better vs AVs. So it's not the wrong tree, but also not necessarily the right tree. Other top options are: Illusion/Traps (IMO, the top AV soloer) Illusion/Cold (see the thread by @Frosticus in this forum) Earth/Thermal (cheapest option) Earth/Traps (kind of hard to find a concept for the character, though)