Coyote

Agreed. I thought it was unwittingly arrogant when I first read it, for a poster to think that they're good enough at psychology and classification to accurately place other players in groups. Especially when a singly player may have different playstyles and opinions based on which characters they're playing.

The MAIN effect of the Sustain powers is defensive in nature. It depends on the power, but it's either +Regen or pretty quick ticks of +Absorb or +HP. In any case, this gets boosted by Health IOs, so... slot it with at least 80% Enhancement in Healing. The SECONDARY effect is +Recovery. It is pretty strong, but it doesn't necessarily need to be slotted up... you do have Stamina (but slot the Sustain before you slot Stamina, unless you're slotting the Sustain with 6 slots of a Healing set for the bonus... Numina for Defense, Pre-Med for Recharge). Even with the base slot in Stamina and an unslotted Sustain, you will still have pretty solid Recovery. However, if you're not going with set bonuses, then 2 Heal and 1-2 Recovery is a good start. Then you can add, if you want, the Performance Shifter IO and maybe the Power Transfer IO for Chance to Heal (especially if the Sustain gives +Absorb, so you have a way to also regain lost HPs). Some Sustain powers have a TERTIARY effect, and you may want/need to slot up for that (KB to KD IO, Accuracy, etc). In any case, End Reduction is not needed even if it can slot it.

Right, my bad, I got confused... they don't self-stack from multiple hits but will stack from separate Sentinels. I was thinking of not self-stacking from multiple different attacks and for some reason expanded that to multiple different attackers.

Are you sure this is still the case? I know this is how it was originally implemented, but I thought I read something on the forums here about some effects like Brusing and Achilles Heel having been "fixed" so that they're no longer using the kludgy "grantself power" ability. And I recall testing after reading that, and seeing that the Achilles Heel debuff was 18% on a +1 target... if the target were casting it upon themselves, then the level shouldn't matter and it should always be a 20% debuff. So, seeing the decreased debuff made me think that I understood correctly, and that the powers are now treated as being cast by the user rather than by the target, but somehow prevented from being stacked from different sources. I recall finding it annoying because it meant that slotting AH into Mercenaries would have a very diminished effect upon most targets.

I think TA can work well with Robots, Illusion, and Mind Control. Maybe Earth Control. And that's about it, in the entire game. Otherwise it's really lackluster with basically anything else. Even with those, I don't think it'll work as well as Storm, but given that Storm is one of the best buff/debuff sets, that may not be a fair comparison.

You don't need the Recovery enhanced that much, while you DO want to enhance the Healing as much as you can. Go with 5 slots of Doctored Wounds if you really want a Recharge bonus, then the 6th slot can go for the Chance to Heal proc, or for a End Mod IO. Or go 6-slots with Preventative Medicine to get a bigger Recharge boost.

I usually put an Endurance/Recharge/Slow in it because End/Rech is useful for it, and for some builds that aren't Controllers having an enhanced Slow may be useful (like on Masterminds, especially Robots). At least one Accuracy, depending on global Accuracy. That covers the basics, and if I can manage a 3rd slot, a pure Recharge IO helps.

In general, a safe concept to go with. There are some exceptions: most IOs that cause a -Res debuff do not stack from different sources. I'm not sure about other types of debuffing like -ToHit or -Recovery from the IOs. Incarnate Interface (not that the OP is close to that now) stack up to a limited amount (I think 4 or 5 stacks for most debuffs). The Sentinel inherent does not stack. I don't recall other examples, but I would be surprised if there aren't others that I'm forgetting.

I think I'd go with DP/Plant Blaster. You get a good amount of Toxic damage via chemical rounds, and add more via Toxins. However, that answers the question of "highest Toxic DPS"... if you really wanted to take down the AV, the real answer is Traps/DP (or DP/Traps), because if the AV is so resistant to damage, you have to approach it from the "shut off its Regen" side of DPS vs Regeneration. Traps will shut down the Regeneration, so even if DP does less toxic damage for Defenders than for Blasters, it's working against 0 HP/sec regeneration rather than 94 HP/sec regeneration at level 50.

/Traps, /Storm, /Cold, and /Poison are all excellent debuff (or damage) oriented sets that work better with Illusion's focus on the enemies rather than on teammates. That said, Illusion is a generally useful set and can work with lots of secondaries. Pain should work fine with it... you would be losing most of the benefits of the ally heal and Painbringer, and you don't get that much out of the +Regen toggle and World of Pain, because Phantom Army doesn't get damage and doesn't get buffed. Phantasm does, but Phantasm really has a pretty minor effect so it's not a major benefit. If you team, however, then everything becomes useful and you still have Illusion to fall back upon when soloing. Pain is not a top set for anything at any level, so nobody would recommend it, but neither is it a bad set. It's solidly middle of the road overall, with a noted lack of -Regen which makes it less appealing against AVs... but note that on teams, damage and -Res are more important than -Regen, because the team will have more DPS and can beat the AV's regeneration without having to debuff it. And Pain does have a pretty standard -Resistance debuff, so on teams it will be fine against AVs.

Or do you want to crush your enemies into a teeny tiny dying space while three Tornadoes and two Lighting Storms have at them? And hit 5 targets at a time because you bunched them up tight enough that even Lighting Storm can't manage to shoot only one fish in a barrel at a time? I think the answer is obvious: more catgirls. 😛

Heh, news to me. Thanks for the knowledge. Yeah, I know, going for mez protection can hurt other defenses if the powers don't line up with the right set bonuses. Granted, with a good uptime on Indomitable Will, it's not unreasonable to rely on breakfrees just to fill in when necessary during the downtime.

Why no Stalagmites? It's a major power for Earth, and has access to a purple set. You can't put that many slots into your last two powers, you'll have to reorder the power selections. Personally, I would like to try to pick up the Sorcery pool and get Rune of Protection, so that alternating between that and Indomitable Will you have permanent mez protection. Powers that I would drop to make room are Maneuvers/Tactics (need to clear up a pool, also), Quicksand, and O2 Boost (that's 4 powers, but you need to drop one to take Stalagmites). Granted, it's if you care to go for that, but IMO it's a nice idea for a Stormy who often draws lots of aggro, to have mez protection if possible.

Well, a Stormie in other ATs has some options: Dehydrate with a Theft of Essence proc, Corruptors have a +End ATO, maybe some other ways to get back Endurance. But Controllers really don't have much. You can go with Cardiac as your primary, but there so many other good options for your Alpha slot for a Controller... Accuracy, Hold, Confuse, Damage. If you don't go with procs (and on a Plant/Storm you might not), then Agility for the +Recharge. So it's hard to select Cardiac. I went with Illusion/Storm, so I rarely get attacked. And I have Rune of Protection, so I very rarely get mezzed, so I don't need to carry too many break-frees. So that works. But other Controllers who get attacked more may need to get Clarion. You CAN alternate Indomitable Will and Rune of Protection for mez protection, and that frees you to use Ageless. It limits you to the Psy epic, but it's not a bad epic. Psynado can slot Force Feedback, and Stormies never have too much Recharge, so I can see someone going Psy and Sorcery in order to be able to go Agless and still have mez protection.

I ran a character up through Praetoria because it seemed to fit the mileu very well, and you can run several options of the character: Psy/Dark Armor Stalker (Scrapper or Brute would work fine also). Psy is obviously prevalent in the milieu, and dark armor is just a generation of the character's anger and frustration (as we see in the First Ward, the broken spirits attack with negative energy blasts although they're conceptually psychic in nature). While Psy lacks AoE until 32, Dark Armor can slot up Dark Regeneration as a PBAoE and help with that, and Boggle helps with the nasty spawns in Praetoria. Another take: Psy/Fire Armor. Same concept, although this might be a Syndicate drop-out, like a real Pyrokineticist, and Burn makes up for the AoE hole. Different option: Robots/TA or Robots/EA... a scrounger making combat bots and either loaded arrows or electric gadgets for the Resistance.

That's because I went red side and got the Irresponsible Adult Accolade 😄

I think there's also a difference between CAN, and DO. I have an Illusion/Storm who goes at +4/x5 and doesn't drop it for AVs... but I really don't want to raise it to x8. Doing "kill all" missions without a good amount of AoE? I don't worry so much about being defeated as about getting bored when I have to fight for SO LONG to clear a map. I'm raising a Psy/DA Stalker... it also probably doesn't have the AoE to make it worthwhile even if it can probably end up doing it. On the other hand, a TW/Regen Brute only has to worry about survival, since he's packed with AoEs. The Plant/Savage Dom has no problems with it, but runs at +3 since AVs at +4 are pushing the edge of the envelope. It's not only about capability, but also about how comfortable is it to play the character at that difficulty level.

I'm making a NinKin work so far, but I'll agree with the concept that it's DIFFERENT from how you expect a MM to play. It's more recommended for someone with multiple MMs who wants to play something different. The plan was as follows: 1) Ninjas have no defense 2) Adding some defense to Ninjas is no easier than adding defense to the Mastermind... and funneling attacks through the MM splits the damage so that you don't get the Genin constantly 1-shot. 3) Funneling damage through the MM allows you to limit it with set bonuses, Tough, and an epic Resist shield, which is probably more total Defense/Resists than you can add to the Ninjas, plus you're higher level than the Genin & Jounin, so you're harder to hit and damage. (downside is that mezzing and debuffing you has a bigger effect than doing it to a henchman). Therefore, in conclusion... the build should work if you slot Provoke well enough and have a macro to call the henchmen near you several times a fight (because their "Defense" is to have you Provoke aggro away from them). This is a very different playstyle from most MMs, which is why it's not recommended as a first MM. Notes: calling henchmen to you and then pulling aggro to you clusters them up nicely for AoEs. But AoEs don't usually do as much damage, and they also end up clustered for Transfusion, and their best Defense will be against AoEs. Genin running after a target will be the #1 reason for their death, and often yours if they aggroed another spawn.

Brute forum is one down on the forum lists 😛

Yes to both. Yeah, when they added Sustain to Blasters, it turned them from a "no defense" AT to "way better than a squishie" AT... they're now like mid-level between ATs with no toggle defenses like Dominators or most Defenders/Controllers/Corruptors, and the ATs with a real defensive set.

No, you just sign up the character for an alternate build, and maintain them (with IOs) separately. Yeah, it's expensive, AND it's annoying to do the shopping, do twice the work on respecs, and so on. But it does help a lot if you're going to both team and solo with the same character. It's probably not worth the time and expense if you're going to solo 80% or team 80% of the time, but if you split more evenly it may be a way to have two good builds. Ironically, now that I think about it, it may be a way to run a CHEAPER build. You may be more effective as a teaming character by taking team-centric powers and slotting them up for the team, even with relatively cheap sets (like don't bother with purples, use Entropic Chaos and Positron if you need Recharge boosts, etc), than by trying the make the One Build to Rule Them All, but having to use multiple purple and winter sets in order to have it be effective for both soloing and teaming. Basically, it's cheaper to run two builds without purples than a single build with purples.

I think that may be overstating the lack of impression. I personally, and I think many others who commented, found it quite strong defensively, and lacking on the offensive end. Overall balanced, and well suited to supporting high-damage pets. Definitely not a real contender for top builds, but it's a solid set. The overall power level seems fine, basically middle of the pack or slightly above it, which is a good result for keeping sets balanced.

That's really good advice, if you have the money... one teaming build and one solo build removes a lot of the issues in trying to squeeze out the best builds. If you know you won't need Speed Boost in one build, and in the other build you expect that you'll have teammates taking the alpha, it really frees you up to make something impressive rather than having to make sure all the holes are filled.

If you want to solo AVs and don't want Illusion, you have two excellent options: 1) Earth Control, with a strong buffing secondary. Animate Stone is a tank with Taunt effect on his attacks, so he can keep the AV busy while you kill him. I just soloed an AV easily at 33, with Earth/Cold... Cold buffs the pet and debuffs the AV. Another excellent option for this is Thermal, as it will do about the same though with buffing Resistance rather than Defense. In both cases you want to put all 4 pet IOs in Animate Stone for Defense and Recovery, so you're giving up some damage slotting, but having an AV-tanking pet is more important than improving its damage a bit. 2) Dark Affinity secondary can make pretty much any primary able to tank an AV. Without going into great detail, debuffing an AV's Resistance improves your Damage debuffs upon it... and Dark puts out good -Resist, and great -Damage, which then gets improved by the -Resist. You may be able to floor an AV's damage before you get Fluffy at 38... and after you get Fluffy, it's quite easy. You also put out something like 150% -ToHit, which even AVs will feel. Add in team Defense and Regen boosts, constant Healing spam (since part of debuffing Damage is to spam Twilight Grasp), and almost no AV in the game can kill you directly with damage. Only the ones that summon pet entities that do damage like Scirocco and his Tornado, or Bad Maiden's blue fires will be a threat. There are other options (/Traps secondary is a good option), but the two simplest are Earth primary or Dark secondary. Earth is pretty straightforward with the right buffing set (and some others will work like Poison or Dark), and Dark Affinity is very straightforward: spam the powers that do -ToHit, -Damage, and -Regen, and the AV becomes a paper tiger.

I have to put a BIG caution on this plan. I know that it is common, and I understand it, but I have this to say: Characters who have always-on defenses that don't care if they attack first or not (basically, "armor" sets) can plan on initiating fights, or not initiating fights, and are fine either way. Characters who need to initiate combat in order to have their defenses "active", because their defenses are generally strong debuffs or controls, do GREAT when they start off with control of the fight. These characters, and most Controllers are included, often don't need to slot for Recharge quite as much as they do, because in truth their controls and debuffs are fine enough even without min-maxing the highest amount of Recharge possible. But you know when these characters have problems? When they don't initiate fights... a pet overaggros, you didn't see a spawn, you attack one spawn in a tight room and the AoE aggros another spawn, etc. Or, you run some tough content like First Ward/Night Ward where the mobs spawn in multiple ambushes and come looking for you. In these cases, it's Ranged Defense that will save you. Not Melee, because you generally have enough time to see and retreat from melee attackers.. but an ambush spawn coming around a corner and unloading on you when you weren't ready might kill you at high difficulty if you didn't mez them first. And take it from someone who runs Night Ward at high difficulty: those mobs are tough when you get the drop on them. When they get the drop on you, without good defenses, you're carpet. Basically, if you want to keep to teaming or easier content, you don't need to worry so much about defenses, and Recharge is big. But as the difficulty goes up, the value of Recharge goes down (also because it takes longer to kill each spawn, so your AoE opener is ready for the next spawn with a 35 second recharge rather than needing a 28 second recharge like it might at a lower level)... but the value of Defense goes up because you will get more incoming fire, and it will hit more often and harder. You will get more fire because your controls and debuffs will be weaker, and also because the content will have more ambushes. So, before you sell out on one kind of build or another, consider what you will be trying for: faster killing of easy content? You want Recharge, Recovery, and Damage. Survival against tougher content? You want Defense, then Recharge, and then a lot of other things like Recovery, Regen (if you don't have a self-heal), and more.