Maelwys

Yeah. Because on a Tanker Innocuous Strikes gets double buffed by Gauntlet (90ft cone/5 targets --> 135ft Cone/10 Targets!) and more importantly it helps generate Form of the Body stacks for Eye of the Storm. With sufficient Recharge (from Force Feedback!) you can just about chain GS > IS > GS > EoTS... but trading a GS for Serpent's Reach makes it a bit easier to juggle and can trigger Decimation procs:

It's certainly powerful combo; lots of AoE and -Res and Guarded Spin makes up for Bio's few shortcomings. Using too many click powers outside of Staff's combo mechanic can actually slow you down though. Comboed Eye of the Storm spam (with Force Feedback and -Res Procs) is what keeps you ticking whenever you're mindlessly AOEing... and if you're fighting something tough then you'll want to keep a comboed Sky Splitter (and 1-2 stacks of Guarded Spin) going. The optimal chain can just about cope with about one extra power activation (e.g. a single Epic blast) but personally I did without. I'd aim for 45% to F/C/E/N typed defense and within one SMoT Proc of the S/L Resistance Hardcap. Getting your baseline melee positional defense up high enough that one copy of Guarded Spin softcaps it should be pretty straightforward too. Bear in mind that Bio has no DDR, but being able to stack a second copy of Guarded Spin on demand will compensate for that in most everything short of 4* content. Also... swap Precise Strike for Mercurial Blow (that's where the Achilles Heel Proc goes!) 😉

The set itself looks like it has a lot of "Recharge" in it and the low-tier set bonuses are rubbish; so it's not going to lend itself to proccing/frankenslotting. That "Chance for Confuse" proc is only 2.5PPM and I assume it'll be Mag 2 base with a "chance for another +1 Mag" that increases in likelihood depending on the number of Cupid's Crush enhancements slotted up to a maximum of 20% (which is a self-defeating mechanic with all that local recharge lowering the initial proc activation chance!) The set bonuses however look pretty decent; and that 6-piece recharge bonus will be excellent on mule attacks that aren't already purpled out...

When you say "AE Farms" do you mean ACTIVE FARMING (when you stay behind the wheel and activate powers/clicky defenses) or PASSIVE "AFK" FARMING (when you just enter the mission, stick one PBAoE attack on autofire + then come back 5-10mins later)? Those two goals each need very different types of builds to be effective. Active farmers don't need much regeneration and can get away with uncapped defense/resistance; because you'll be there to pop inspirations. They also often don't bother with multiple damage auras; but they do want lots of AoE powers; all crammed full of -res and damage procs. Passive farmers absolutely require 90% Resistance and 45% Defense and >35 HP/Sec regeneration. And they'll generally want two damage auras and one decent high-radius and high-target-cap PBAoE that can be procbombed and set to Autofire. After that it's a case of cramming in as much global +Damage and +Recharge as you can. Stone Armor Brutes have a major advantage over Stone Armor Tankers: Brimstone Armor. The additional "damage procs" granted via Brimstone Armor are coded to benefit from Fury. "Quills" from Spines also doesn't benefit from Tanker Gauntlet. IMO a Graniteless Spines/Stone Brute probably lends itself best to AFK AE "Fire-farming" with Spine Burst set to Autofire. You'll find some similar example setups in this thread. Personally I use a RadMelee/Stone Brute (Atom Smasher can slot the Achilles' Heel -res proc and will farm a little faster) but there's not a huge amount of difference.

C - Dark Armor B - Stone Armor (Crystal Armor has +Recovery), Shield Defense, Super Reflexes, Invulnerability A - Willpower, Radiation Armor (without a Theft of Essence Proc in Radiation Therapy) S - Radiation Armor (with a Theft of Essence Proc in Radiation Therapy), Fiery Aura SS - Electric Armor, Ice Armor SSS - Bio Armor - Dark is the absolute worst for Endurance drain; soooo many Toggles (including Death Shroud) and no recovery at all. - Stone used to be the same; but they buffed Crystal Armor. So now if you're not in Granite it gets enough Recovery to offset some of its own toggles. - Shield and SR and INV all have no recovery abilities and three toggles. Shield's actually cost the least; but it gets Shield Charge. INV is a smidge less costly than SR. - Willpower has four toggles; but gets Quick Recovery. Radiation Armor and Fiery Aura both get a decent recovery ability... although FA's has a pretty long cooldown; and RA's tends to be slotted with damage procs and Healing rather than for Recovery (although Gamma Boost helps too as long as your health bar stays high!). It's also worth pointing out that a single Theft of Essence Proc slotted in Radiation Therapy can works wonders. - Electric Armor (and Energy Aura; which isn't available to Tankers but is to the other Melee ATs) have both a very solid recovery ability plus ~60% Endurance Cost Reduction (from Energise); and Ice Armor gets Energy Absorption (which is good out of the box for +Endurance and they will be spamming anyway for +Defense). - Bio Armor gets Inexhaustible, DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura. It will comfortably sit at the RECOVERY HARDCAP even in "Offensive" stance.

The quote marks used in the second bind are different than the others. Bind gets fussy about stuff like that and the pink text you're referring to in the chat log typically corresponds to a syntax error. Try copying/pasting the working rightarrow bind EXACTLY and amend it to use the downarrow key.

The thing to remember about Poison Dart's -Regen... And since its base recharge time is 4s it'll be up very often. A lot of the Widow Claw abilities have an Arcanatime of 1.056s; so you can comfortably weave it in after every other attack. Doing so lets you keep almost exactly 4 stacks up constantly; which is -100% Regen and can start making a noticeable dent in things. However using Poison Dart so often will hurt your average DPA, so it'll depend on the target you're facing if that tradeoff is "worth it". A -100% regen debuff is roughly equal to 9 additional damage per second vs a regular +3 (lvl 54) AV. Versus a Giant Monster on the other hand? That -100% regen debuff will be doing a lot more - roughly 53 additional damage at level 50. For comparison; START Temp Envenomed Daggers inflict -250% Regen for 10s and have almost the same base damage as Poison Dart (but can't be enhanced!).

Nice to see another mitigation-focussed /regen! Last I poked at my old Kat/Regen Scrapper (who admittedly tends to prioritise a more offensive form of mitigation since they can fall back on Divine Avalanche to situationally softcap their melee defence in a pinch) they were just about hitting ~72 HP/Sec passive and ~50% S/L res before Incarnate Clickies. Betty's earlier point about RechargeTime Debuff resistance is well put; but personally I'll often settle for 50% or a smidge less on my builds in the name of chasing higher red numbers; and my /Regen is no different. If you do choose to go that route, then equipping the right Incarnate Clickies (and certain Radial Lore Pets!) can be lifesavers. And keep the Geas and Magus accolades handy "just in case"... 😉

You're welcome. And whilst you're waiting for Inferno to recharge... try copying your character onto Brainstorm and try moving the Overwhelming Force Proc into Fireball instead. Call it humouring an overly-pedantic forumite. (Spoiler alert:) The alt text for that one rocks. (Admittedly sometimes I really struggle to recognise when someone is just wilfully doubling-down on Cunningham's Law...)

I'm a Blaster too. And I'm not just going off a spreadsheet. I extensively used epic pool Bonfire with a KB>KD IO before the nerf on multiple toons, and I was heavily involved in testing the proposed changes on Brainstorm. I didn't get the powers that be to stop all of the negative changes, but I did get them to acknowledge and revert the duration nerf. Until recently I still used Epic Pool Bonfire on my Fire Blaster, and I currently still use it on one of my Masterminds. I can assure you that Bonfire works in practice just as I've detailed above. The links to CoDv2 I posted above are simply there to clearly highlight the numbers and back this up. Bonfire has a target cap of 10 targets. That means with a KB>KD IO on average if you use it in a target saturated environment then it'll bounce just 2 foes (20%) in its initial "tick"; and spawn distribution being what it is those foes will often end up being minions. That is not anywhere close to "mitigating 90% of incoming damage". In practice whenever you pop Bonfire on a spawn without layering on any additional CC; most of that spawn will just turn around and shoot you, then run (at full speed!) out of Bonfire's 15ft radius and proceed to eat your face. So that 3.3s will almost always be better spent focus-firing on a few of the more problematic targets instead of casting Bonfire. It is still possible to leverage Bonfire for survivability: don't slot a KB>KD IO and then just stand inside it. Or alternatively, team with someone who has an AoE immobilize.

I think it makes thematic sense to have Empathy's resurrect represented as "extremely concentrated healing energy"... and if that level of energy gets infused into someone who is only mostly dead (at worst!) then it should end up overcharging their vitality somehow. Heck; maybe just apply the effects of Moment of Glory to them and call it a day.

Actually what I want is more attacks that are like Blaze; ideally a sufficient number of them to let me achieve a seamless high-DPA Single Target attack chain! I imagine part of this might be down to a difference in playstyles and build goals. One of my main goals with every single toon I make is to work out what their "optimized" seamless (infinitely repeatable) Single target attack chain will be (within the bounds of whatever primary and secondary power pools I happen to have chosen). Often this means that my Epic/Patron Pool choice is dictated by whatever one has the most powerful attack or buff/debuff... although occasionally there'll be a case where theme overrides performance slightly (such as on my Staff Tanker; which intentionally uses the staff attacks only and neglects Pool power and Epic Attacks!). Obviously AoE powers are important to have too; even whenever you're not constantly teaming. Often a toon will have one or two really strong AoE attacks which will end up forming part of the optimal Single Target chain anyway; but I'll generally try to take at least 2-3 decent AoE abilities (aside from the Judgement Incarnate nuke) one way or another. However I never try to make a seamless attack chain out of them - instead they're there to be situationally substituted into my Single Target attack chain depending on the number of enemies around me and their current location. Unfortunately usually this approach won't end up producing the highest possible damage output from all of my chosen attack powers... because it's rare that I'll have full leeway to slot damage procs everywhere (I tend to need to use some enhancement slots in my attack powers to achieve specific set bonuses like +Recharge/Resistance/Defense) so there's always a little bit of a balancing act, and that's where the fun (for me!) of repeatedly poking at builds comes in to attain the maximum performance + minimum slotting sacrifices. Anyways; as a quick example: here's the current ST-damage attack chain for my Fire/Ice/Fire blaster; which corresponds to the DPA power listing I gave earlier: Note that Fireball, Fireblast and Firebreath are nowhere to be seen here because they simply do not provide any benefit to my Single Target DPA. However in practice, I'll almost always end up weaving Fireball and Firebreath and Rain of Fire etc. into my attacks providing that I'm fighting more than one enemy. If I need to hang back out of Melee Range (and so can't reliably use Frozen Aura or Ice Sword!) then Fireball and Fireblast start getting more use: It's certainly possible to start off with AoE attacks and plug the gaps with ST attacks instead of keeping the AoEs in reserve and using them situationally. I imagine that someone who approaches things that way likely won't need to bother slotting up as many attacks; but will be a smidge slower when fighting AVs/GMs/etc and may end up with an insufficient number of filler attacks to utilise whenever they're exemplaring. I simply place higher value on having a "more optimal" single target attack chain to spam on GMs/AVs/Pylons/etc. whenever the need arises. (And this post is intended to be an explanation of sorts rather than a slight against Tidge's playstyle!) 😉

By spending slots on a single-target Attack, and the second-best one available to me by the numbers. (albeit one which happens to have a hold effect built into it as a oft-inconsequential bonus of opening up additional damage proccing opportunities... 😁 ) Personally I don't think level 35 is hugely long to wait. That means Char is available when exemplaring down as far as Lvl30 (e.g. the vast majority of repeatable content) Heck, until relatively recently Tankers had to wait until Lv35 just to get their T8 attack let alone their T9. I do appreciate that some folk like to get everything in early for the likes of DFBs or Positron TFs though.

That's kinda the point of Char for my line of thinking. It's a hold, yes, but it might be better to think of it as a low-animation-time ranged DoT that happens to take Hold Set Damage Procs. Here's my Fire/Ice/Fire Blaster's list of attacks: Note the one with the second highest DPA? And not by a small margin either.

In the olden days before crashless nukes it was considered a sign of a good Empath to have >1000% recovery in Adrenaline Boost; to let the Blaster keep on trucking after a Nova/Inferno (and if you could perma it on them they'd be your friend for life!) It was also a sign of an attentive empath to accurately track + predict when the Tank's crashing T9 power was about to expire; and hit them with a Clear Mind and Fortitude before it dropped and a chunky Heal (Absorb Pain for preference!) just afterwards. I remember a few occasions where I was on my /Empath Controller and a friend that mained an INV Tanker (and who was skilled enough to be able to consistently time their Dull Pain activations to kick in just after their Unstoppable crashes) told me outright to stop doing such a good job of buffing/healing them because they could no longer feel even the slightest hint of danger and were missing their usual adrenaline kick. How times have changed... 😛

20% at best unfortunately; at least when slotted with a KB>KD IO. Look here and note the effect line that lists "120% chance" of inflicting a Mag 6.231 knockback; with the yellow "ReduceIfKD" tag beside it. This "ReduceIfKD" flag works by taking a flat -100% off the power's KB activation chance whenever a KB>KD conversion IO is slotted within it. See here and note the line "-100% Power Chance Mod (self only) for 10.25s" with the matching yellow tag to the far right. The upshot is that Bonfire will end up with a 20% chance to inflict KnockDOWN instead of its original 120% (capped at 100%) chance to inflict KnockBACK. Bonfire has an Activate Period of 1 second; meaning its Knockback/Knockdown effect can get a chance to pulse every 1 second. Cumulative Probability means that even after 10 such pulses you'd still have a >10% likelihood (10.737%) that a particular foe hasn't been knocked down once yet. Unfortunately the Epic pool version of Bonfire only has a 15ft radius; so the chances of a particular foe staying inside it for more than a few seconds are slim-to-none unless you stack other CC (like -MovementSpeed effects) on top of it. Without slotting a KB>KD IO in Bonfire it works fantastically as mitigation. You can stand inside it and nothing will be able to approach you without getting subjected to a 100% chance for knockback every 1s; which makes it brilliant for ranged toons when soloing. But it's much less useful in teaming situations.

Agreed. However leaving aside the pet issues (which I mentioned in my previous post!)... I think Pylons are still a fairly useful yardstick of what order you can expect different ATs and powersets to end up in; regardless of whatever "external performance doping mechanisms" you choose to allow or not. Every power set is always going to be limited by its attacks' base damage, animation time, and recharge rates; plus whatever damage procs they are capable of taking. Allowing additional temp powers/buffs that grant -res/+damage/summons/whatever on top of that is mostly just going to end up increasing the performance of everything equally. In "real world" situations you're going to have to contend with a lot more variables such as enemy resistances; "overkill" damage (AKA "my attack dealt 1000 damage but it only had 1 hit point left") and long animation times (AKA "my teammates killed it before my attack even landed"). FWIW I personally can't stand the idea of one of my toons having a build that is so "specialist" that they become incapable of functioning decently in regular gameplay. Even my AFK AE Fire Farmers still have softcapped S/L defense and a Single Target attack chain... 🙈

Generally I'll get T3 Judgement and T4 (Reactive) Interface. Because they unlock first after the Alpha Slot and I keep plenty of spare Transcendent Merits in my global email box. Lore and Destiny next. I typically focus on Lore first (because having a buffpet for 5mins out of every 10 is more useful unless the toon needs Ageless) but some squishy sets really benefit from getting Clarion Core for the constant mez protection. Hybrid last; and almost always either Assault (although split between Core and Radial) or Support Core. A few toons have Melee Core for added survivability. After I've T4'ed everything I'll usually go back and make other "situationally useful" options like a T4 Degenerative Interface and T4 Barrier/Incandescence Destinies too. EDIT: It can really help to run Heather's DA arc a few times when you're starting out below Vet level 10 or so for the Salvage rewards. You'll be T4 before you know it.

Agreed. And unlike some of the other powersets listed, this especially hurts Ice Blast users because the power in question was such a big part of its optimal attack chain. Which means that in order to make a viable attack chain on an Ice Blast Sentinel you're forced to either suffer using Chilling Ray or some combination of one of the lower-DPA T1 and T2 blasts and/or an Epic attack (which isn't as viable these days since Dominate was nerfed!). All of which drag your DPA down. The only saving grace of the set is that Bitter Ice Blast is still good (at least until you look at Blaze) Elec Blast on the other hand came out waaaaaay ahead because not only did it gain in Snipe damage; but it also got handed a viable extra attack in Tesla Cage AND some of the best performing Epics Pool Powers (Elec Mastery's Havoc Punch + Shocking Field; or Mu Mastery's Thunder Strike) are thematically aligned with it.

Urgh. Flashbacks to my non-SR Scrappers earning their debt badges under the old when-you-get-mezzed-all-your-toggles-drop-including-mez-protection system. At least these days you'll not have to retoggle most of your armors afterwards, and whilst you're mezzed you keep a basic level of mez protection (AFAIK most of the toggle-CC-protection abilities only get their KB protection component cancelled; but their Held/Stunned/Sleep/Immobilized protection component stays active...)

Sentinel - Dark Blast - Energy Aura.mbd Chain/DPS Math: And FWIW here's my last attempt at getting Ice Blast to work: zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Elec Mastery).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Leviathan M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - SR (Psionic M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Elec Mastery).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Leviathan M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Electric Armor (Psionic M).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Energy Aura (+Procs).mbd zSentinel - Ice Blast - Energy Aura (+Rech).mbd Chain/DPS Math for the /EnergyAura variant:

I'm not a huge fan of Sentinels; however the one that I still play occasionally is Dark Blast. As a set it's a little bit lacking in AoE damage but has nice ST (especially when procced out) and doesn't need to close to melee range for anything except the Nuke. It's also got very good synergy with the likes of SR, which is better than usual on a Sentinel due to Master Brawler. (Mine's a Dark/Energy Aura; but I did dabble with Dark/SR!)

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=blaster_ranged.ice_blast.freeze_ray&at=blaster https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.ice_blast.chilling_ray&at=sentinel That's why. On Sentinels they took most of the Ranged Blast sets; then removed the Snipes + "normalised" the Nuke recharge + reduced the maximum target caps of most AoEs. However they also adjusted most of the single Target mez effects (e.g. holds) to ensure they dealt appreciable damage and had similar CC durations. For most sets this has been a buff - Tesla Cage from Elec Blast actually deals pretty good damage on a Sentinel. However Freeze Ray from Ice Blast already dealt decent damage; and they absolutely gutted it. They reduced its damage, nearly doubled its activation time and made it a sleep instead of a hold. Ice Blast is still reasonable on Sentinels, but unfortunately it's not a top-tier set; even when fully procced out. Elec Blast on the other hand is surprisingly good on Sentinels.

It's not. /Marine MMs and -res-stacked Crabberminds take that crown these days; with the former being far easier to focus-fire on a particular enemy. If you discount any builds that leverage most/all temp powers ("Division 2+" or "Division 4+" in the above linked thread) as well as any that leverage multiple pets (since their performance can vary wildly depending on the currently-active level differences between each pet and your target!) then Scrappers are still up there; just behind Stalkers and roughly on par with Dominators. With animation-cancelling-exploit Kheldians plus a few Blaster, Controller, Corruptor and Sentinel builds hot on their heels.

Life Drain Their power list is a bit short - they've Ghastly Blast (4s rech, 310ft blast), Life Drain (15s rech, 60ft blast) and Necroplasmic Grasp (15s rech, melee hold). Note that the first two powers accept -ToHit debuff enhancement; so if you're looking to add damage output I'd stick a Cloud Senses proc in it first.