Maelwys

**mutters something about the pedaling we need not the pedaling we deserve**

Guarded Spin bumps Lethal and Melee by 15 to ~24% per stack. Guess what Position and Type most attacks that contain Defense debuffs are? 😉 I find if you aim for 45% without GS (or with just a single stack) then by just layering an extra stack I'll have few if any issues with the vast majority of non-autohit Defence debuffs. These typically inflict -10% Def per hit. WP gets 21.6% DDR via Heightened Senses reducing that to -7.84%. So it'll take 2-3 successful hits to eat through each additional stack of GS (at a 5% hit chance - assuming that you stacked GS before getting hit; or at least before getting hit twice!). Hardcapped S/L resistance and high regeneration will help you weather the odd unlucky streak; and there's always Barrier and Ageless to fall back on too...

Whilst I don't have a Willpower/Staff Tanker, I do have a Willpower/SS Tanker and a Bio/Staff Tanker. So rather than give you a full build to work from (I'm sure others can post those and there's likely to be at least one in IceSphere's Dropbox) I'm going to show you some numbers and explain why I'm shooting for them. First, the WP/SS build: zTanker - WP_SS IOed (CrossPunch).mbd With a single foe within range of Rise to the Challenge, this character sits at a hair under 105HP/Second Regeneration. ...and this is what happens with a fully saturated RTTC: This is a /SuperStrength Tanker, so they need a bit of help to make a good Single Target attack chain (hence Cross Punch; slotted with a -res proc!) and the bulk of their AoE damage output comes from Rage + Foot Stomp; so Foot Stomp gets slotted with Procs; including a Force Feedback: Chance for +Recharge (in order to get Footstomp up sooner). The bulk of the attacks are slotted for set bonuses - a mixture of Defense and Damage Resistance; plus a smattering of +MaxHP. Willpower/ can't get anywhere near the Tanker Maximum HP Cap by itself; and it needs a bit of assistance reaching the Defense Softcap (45% for regular Content) and the S/L Damage Resistance Hardcap (90%) even on a Tanker instead of a Brute. The "Superior Might of Tanker" ATO Proc in KO Blow adds another 1-3 stacks of "6.4% resistance to all damage types" on top of the totals listed; meaning that their S/L resists will end up getting hardcapped. Note the Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self procs in Stamina, Quick Recovery and Physical Perfection plus the Panacea Proc in Health. These do not buff your regeneration or recovery rate - instead they grant a flat amount of health (and endurance in the case of Panacea). This is an important distinction as you'll gain full benefit from them even when you're up against substantial -Regeneration debuffs. The Superior Entomb: Chance for Absorb proc in KO Blow and the Preventive Medicine Chance for Absorb global in Physical Perfection operate similarly. Focused Accuracy is present in the build; but left switched OFF unless the character encounters any substantial -ToHit debuffs. Next up, the Bio/Staff build: Tanker (Bio Armor - Staff) (CT + Taunt + SS).mbd The peak achievable Regeneration and Recovery Rates for Bio blows WP out of the water; but at baseline it's sitting around 64HP/Second Regeneration. ...and this is what it can look like with a fully saturated DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura going; even in Offensive Stance: Anyway. The two big things here to do with /Staff are the stances - especially Form of the Body; and Guarded Spin. With the Form of the Body stance enabled, each Staff ability you activate grants you a stack of "Perfection of Body" (up to three stacks maximum). Each stack gives you a +4% damage buff; but the real benefit comes when you've built up three stacks and then activate either Sky Splitter or Eye of the Storm. Doing so with Sky Splitter will inflict a little extra damage and also grant you +13.3 Damage Resistance to everything for 15 seconds (which can easily become permanent) Doing so with Eye of the Storm will inflict a little extra damage and also inflict a -10% Damage Resistance debuff for 6 seconds (much tougher to get perma; but still useful) Guarded Spin grants +15% Defence to both Melee (positional) and Lethal (typed) for 10 seconds. This is enhanceable, so in the build above it's providing +22%. And it's STACKABLE - so you can double or even triple stack it to temporarily push you beyond the 59% Incarnate Softcap and/or help counter things like Defense Debuffs. A typical Staff Single Target Attack chain includes Guarded Spin, so you can probably safely assume that one stack will always be active. Mine uses SrptsReach > SkySplitter > SrptsReach > MercBlow > GrdedSpin at 10.164s duration (this also gives the SMoT Proc in Serpent's Reach lots of activation opportunities; typically sitting at 3 stacks!) Staff's not wonderful at Single Target Damage output (except on Stalkers) but it does have two Cones and a PBAoE (Guarded Spin, Innocuous Strikes and Eye of the Storm) which all benefit greatly from the Tanker Gauntlet inherent's buffs to Radius and Target Cap. Eye of the Storm also provides a very substantial -resistance debuff when slotted with a Fury of the Gladiator -Res proc and used with 3x "Perfection of Body" stacks (which you'll be building up between activations anyway!) and it takes that all-important Force Feedback: Chance for +Recharge proc. Combining Willpower and Staff does have some synergy. You can make good use of Guarded Spin to help shore up Willpower's lackluster native Smashing/Lethal/Melee Defense (I'd push for 45%+ to both Melee and Lethal with a single Guarded Spin stack) and factoring in the extra 13.3% Damage resistance from 3x Perfection of Body stacks + Sky Splitter will help you hit the Resistance hardcaps. So compared to my WP/SS build you'll not need to invest in anywhere near the same amount of mitigation-centric Set Bonuses; which will free you up to add more Damage Procs or Global Recharge. You won't be breaking any Damage Output or Survivability records, but it should still perform pretty decently across the majority of content and not be a total slouch whenever it comes to AoEing down hordes of mooks.

Swapped Snow Storm for RoP and played around a bit more on Brainstorm... With all /Dark's ToHit debuffage I'm finding the extra S/L Defense from Frozen Armor to be overkill for everything short of Cimerorans; and I'm not overly impressed by the Ice Elemental's performance (whilst their Proc chances are nice; their kamikaze AI is making them rather prone to dying even with well beyond softcapped defense + MaxHP + Arcane Ward + Panacea). So I've changed Epic Pools to Soul Mastery and managed to wiggle a bit more global recharge out of things: Defender - Cold_Dark (SoulMastery).mbd And with RoP toggled on: This new variant can swap between Agility Radial T4 for "full-turtle-mode" Teaming and Musculature Radial T4 for everything else. The smidge higher Global Recharge gets the ST attack seamless with Agility Alpha (and about half a second shy with Musculature Alpha... Infrigidate needs ~30% additional Recharge% to fully close the gap. Ageless + an Empowerment Station buff can get it there without negatively affecting Proc rate). Saturated Soul Drain provides better uptime than Build Up did; and the extra +Res doesn't hurt even without RoP. It is even more slot-starved than the original build however, so I've had to drop the Kismet and the 3rd slot in Stamina. Thankfully the former isn't missed with Soul Drain + Infrigidate/Sleet (Moonbeam's Fast Snipe damage bonus gets capped even with 1 foe hit by Soul Drain); and the latter is very superfluous with Heat Loss (or Ageless) running. The Fortuna Mistress pet is not quite as damaging against a Single Target as a Procced-up Ice Elemental. But it's not far off. And it's considerably more survivable (with "Prefer Ranged" AI; plus up to 30% scaling Damage Resistance) and it comes with a variety of CC (including a stackable Mag3 Hold and a Mag4 Stun). It also has a rather decent Nuke that's available once per summoning which inflicts a -RechargeTime debuff for 20s that is even more potent in strength (70%) than a Cold Defender's Snow Storm (62.5%). So I suspect I have a winner... Still interested in other feedback/opinions though! 👍

Thanks for the response. Point taken RE Snow Storm/RoP. TT is mainly there as a mule for the DB set (plus the stacking immobilize effect to keep larger mobs away from me and/or bouncing in Sleet) - it was either that or Night Fall... AoE damage output is not really this toon's forte! 🤣 Unfortunately Life Drain is currently procced; and moving the Recharge-laden VA set to it would floor its activation rate (even the 5PPM VA Proc would only have 47.58% chance). I'm also not sure that the Absorb would actually benefit much from this - its buff seems to currently center from the caster (me!) anyway rather than the Sleet pseudopet. Currently Sleet is recastable within the VA proc's 20s duration; and with an average spawn of enemies it'll have capped liklihood of activation. So best case it might just overrwrite itself a bit sooner (on average every ~12.5s rather than every ~18.5s). Without ATOs being a concern I'd typically Slot Sleet with 1x Lv50+5 Rech plus 1x Acc/Rech HO or Ragnarok. Panacea Proc in Spirit Ward does indeed buff the target; they'll get a chance for some Health and Endurance upon casting and every 10 seconds thereafter (chance is exactly 50%). In *most* heals Panacea proc will end up buffing the target; Spirit Tree and Triage Beacon are particularly worthwhile...

Given Nature (Heals/Regen/Absorb, +Damage/ToHit, +Endurance Reduction, Damage Resistance buffs) and Dark (Slow, -ToHit/Regen/DamageResistance debuffs, +Stealth, more +Damage Resistance Buffs)... and all the +Defence and +Damage from Thug Leadership skills... Yeah, /Marine all the way. Shifting Tides by itself would clinch the deal; let alone the Synergy between Power of the Depths + Nature's various Regeneration effects and Toroidal Bubble capping your other Resistances. And it brings Endurance and Recovery buffs that the other sets are lacking in. And on-demand enemy deletion in Brine. TL;DR:

Also their individual abilities will often differ from power to power. Such as this rather cheeky little high five (600% normal accuracy!) Flooring ToHit chance is generally the thing to shoot for; as you can't do much about all their various +Accuracy Mods.

An Archvillian's level should be visible in your target window. Different AVs have different possible level ranges that they can spawn at, but when encountering one within a mission they'll generally obey the Team Leader's difficulty setting. Giant Monsters (not AVs!) are the ones that have hidden levels. For example: Jurassik spawns at level 40 and Kraken spawns at level 25. Or do you mean an AV's RANK bonus? That's always 1.5 From https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Attack_Mechanics:

I think looking at the build invokes enough panic as it is... 😛

It's mainly useful as a "turtle up" option for Countering large amounts of Enemy Debuffs. If you're not facing lots of -Defense, -ToHit, -Recharge, -Regen, etc. (especially on hardmode) then you likely won't need it; but it's nice to have in a pinch if you can fit it.

Salutations 'fender forum dwellers. It's new toon time again... and I've been cooking a build which started out as more of a concept thing, then quickly evolved into a "just how far can I push this?" exercise. I realize that Cold is more of a meta pick on Corruptors (for good reason, especially Ice/Colds) but I wanted to make a new "useful" Defender. And since the base buff/debuff values of Cold are better on the Defender AT it is almost able to bump an otherwise unbuffed ally directly to Softcap by itself. Combining that with Dark Blast (whose -ToHit debuffs are likewise maximized on a 'fender) can push things even further; providing plenty of wiggle room for incoming Defense Debuffs even before Ageless etc. So this pairing on a Defender should be able to handle all a Team's +Defense needs plus the usual gamut of Cold Debuffs; whilst also leaving plenty of opportunity to procbomb its own attacks and fit in a few fun/utility picks. What I've got at the moment: MITIGATION (Others) Cold Bubbles + Arctic Fog + Maneuvers = Allied +Defense sitting at ~40.18% before Clicky Incarnates. Arctic Fog is also granting 31.4% Resistance to Fire/Cold/Energy and Slow Debuffs. Frostwork can be kept up on 6 allies simultaneously; increasing their MaxHP by >1000 (hardcapping the majority) plus some Toxic resistance. Spirit Ward can be kept up on one ally, granting a +506.28 Absorb buffer (renews at +50.628 every 2s) plus some healing via a Panacea proc. Each of the blasts inflict -9.38 -ToHit. The basic ST attack chain can keep at least 5 stacks up constantly on a single target; so even versus a Level 54 AV that's still another 0.13*0.48*(5*9.38)=2.927% -ToHit. Tenebrous Tentacles can stack it twice for a little ongoing AoE debuffery; and Blackstar inflicts a whopping -62.5% for 20s every ~40s. MITIGATION (Self) Personal Mitigation is leaning quite heavily on S/L Typed Defense (45.31%) and Ranged Positional Defense (28.86%). Due to all the -ToHit inflicted via the blasts; when pew-pewing stuff it will almost always end up effectively softcapped vs Ranged. A good chunk of MaxHP (a hair over 1.5k) and a >200HP Life Drain every 6.204s. Plus both Defender ATO procs (meh) and the Preventive Medicine Chance-for-Absorb Unique. Resistances aren't wonderful (at least for S/L/N/T/P - it's at 75% vs Cold and not bad vs Fire and Energy) but I'm not sure they're needed. I've got a variant of the current build with Rune of Protection (via dropping either Snow Storm or Assault) but I'm currently leaning towards not taking it; and picking up Clarion for Mez protection. OTHER DEBUFFERY Heat Loss and Benumb and Sleet are Perma. A Sleet pseudopet patch can nearly be out constantly (could shave another ~0.5s off with an extra slot). Infrigidate (with an Achilles' Heel Proc @71.6% activation chance) is part of the regular attack chain. Snow Storm is taken too, albeit perhaps a bit late in the build. Blackstar is up roughly every 40s and aside from the aforementioned -62.5 ToHit also has a capped chance of activating the Fury of the Gladiator -Res Proc. DAMAGE OUTPUT Lots of procs. Activation Rate admittedly suffers a bit because I've chosen the Agility Core Paragon in order to bump up the Defense numbers and get the important Cold Powers perma'ed... but it also *just about* gets the Infrigidate > Gloom > Moonbeam (fast) > LifeDrain ST Attack Chain seamless (using truncated Arcanatime and assuming no additional delays/lag - unlikely - leaves Infrigidate 0.144s short, which is virtually unnoticeable in practice and can technically be closed with another +10% Global recharge via Ageless/Lores/Empowerment Buffs/Whatever). Patron pool Build Up with a Gaussian Proc is almost up as often as Blackstar. Assault Radial Hybrid, and Lore Pets (BP's extra -Cold res is pretty nice). There's also a Patron Pet (I know they tend to die to a stiff breeze, but hear me out...) whose main attacks gain the benefit of two damage procs plus Soulbound; and has at least 25% inherent Defense on top of the Bubbles/Fog/Maneuvers. It's also Perma. The extra damage, debuffs and CC it provides may be forgettable whilst teaming; but it can be a target for Spirit Ward and Frostwork when soloing. Anyway, here's the actual build: Defender - Cold_Dark (IceMastery+Infrigidate).mbd Thoughts? I've been going back and forth a bit over whether or not to pick up Rune of Protection (which would likely involve dropping either Assault or Snow Storm) - aside from the obvious benefits of RoP itself, that would let me swap the Steadfast Unique in Arctic Fog to a 3rd Gladiator's Armor, then swap the Zephyr IO in Mystic Flight to a Winter's Gift Unique. Or alternatively, I could drop the Sorcery pool entirely in favour of the Medicine Pool (swapping Spirit Ward for Aid Other + moving the Panacea back into Health; and swapping Mystic Flight for Super Jump). Whilst I have played several bubblers in my time; Cold's buffs not gaining any long-term benefit from Power Boost / Power Build Up and factoring in consistent high -ToHit debuffs makes the balancing act a bit more interesting... 🤔🥶 [EDIT:] I messed around a little on Brainstorm this afternoon ahead of building it properly on the Live servers. The toon seems to perform more or less as expected; and the Defender ATO procs are actually triggering pretty reliably in TT (~26.95% chance per enemy hit for a 107HP AoE heal every ~4.5s; although it won't trigger more than once per activation) and Sleet (~25.64% chance per enemy hit for an AoE +7.5% Absorb buff on cast only... but it lasts for 20s and doesn't stack so is effectively "perma") which might actually be useful given that those powers will be spammed vs larger mobs.

Technically you could also go for an Epic Pool with a Def-based shield (Mace or Ice) rather than either Energy or Soul for Power Boost/Power Build Up. It's not optimal from a survivability point of view to do that since you'd be giving up a lot of +Resistance buffage; but it would at least let you hit the S/L (and/or Energy) Softcap without investing too much into set bonuses... which could free you up to procbomb more attacks. On a Defender; ED-capped for +Defence% your Allied Bubbles will be giving ballpark 23.5%, plus another 15.6% for Dispersion Bubble; for 39.1% total. Maneuvers is another 5.5% ish. Radial Clarion can boost the Allied Bubbles from 23.5% to 35.5% once every 120 seconds. That's ~56.6% Def for allies without Power Boost/Power Build Up; and ~21.1% Def for you. [Frozen Armor] from Ice Mastery can grant you another 23.5% to S/L plus a further 6% from the Steadfast and Gladiator Armor IOs; so you can sit at ~50.6% S/L Def before any other set bonuses. [Scorpion Shield] from Mace Mastery can grant 23.5% to S/L and 15.7% to Energy but won't take Resistance IO sets. On a Corruptor; ED-capped for +Defence% your Allied Bubbles will be giving ballpark 17.6%, plus another 11.7% for Dispersion Bubble; for 29.3% total. Maneuvers is another 4.1% ish. Radial Clarion can boost the Allied Bubbles from 17.6% to 26.6% once every 120 seconds. That's ~42.4% Def for allies without Power Boost/Power Build Up; and ~15.8% Def for you. [Frozen Armor] from Ice Mastery can grant you another 20% to S/L plus a further 6% from the Steadfast and Gladiator Armor IOs; so less than 4% S/L Def needed to softcap. [Scorpion Shield] from Mace Mastery can grant 20% to S/L and 13.3% to Energy but won't take Resistance IO sets. Whilst Masterminds weren't mentioned in the OP, they don't really need to think about Epic/Patron selection as their Mace Mastery pool actually includes Power Boost. Their base numbers are identical to Corruptors; but Power Boost will bring their Allied Bubbles to 25% by itself and to 34% when stacked with with Radial Clarion. Meaning their teammates (and Henchmen!) can sit at 49.8% Def even before the Pet Aura IOs and stuff like Protector Bot Bubbles or Thug Maneuvers. (And for the sake of completeness, the numbers for Controllers are functionally identical to Corruptors, aside from getting access to [Rock Armor] from the Earth Mastery pool... which can grant a smidge more S/L Def at ~22.5% but also won't take Resistance IO sets)

FF has substantially Stronger Buff and Debuff Values on a Defender. A Corruptor will get a little higher base damage from Force Bomb. So by that logic it's "stronger" on Defenders. However by going Defender you'll inflict lower damage from your Blast set... and FF is a fairly passive support set so you'll likely be spending quite a lot of time blasting. Also; usually combining any AT's FF Bubbles with Power Boost (and/or Radial Clarion) will stick your allies firmly at the Softcap; so the higher base buffage on Defenders can be a moot point.

Mids hasn't factored the SMoT Proc in for quite a few updates now. You can edit Mid's database yourself for stuff like this (and I often will) but chances are good that it'll bork it again next update. [Edit] - Found the relevant chatter on their discord about it: Note that the latest (non-dev) app version made available was v3.7.5 back in July. So we're currently stuck with the borked version.

IIRC the Repeat Offenders were more social-and-teaming with a slant towards high performance shenanighanry involving buffers/debuffers (all-defender TFs stacking insane levels of debuffs on things, etc) rather than Roleplaying. They had specialized squads of particular powersets/ATs such as an all-kinetics SG ("Pinball Wizards" IIRC?) But if they're on Everlasting these days (and they didn't intentionally move there to escape all the dumb on Excelsior) ... maybe? 🤔🥸👮🏽‍♂️👷🏻‍♂️🤠

A few quick tests: It's also worth pointing out what happens with insufficient accuracy slotting; via swapping those Acc/Dam HOs for some Common +Rech IOs: (Note the +ToHit buff from Targeting Drone gets copied to the pseudopet and affects the initial hit check, then it drops off and subsequent hit checks use base accuracy) As you'll notice, procs do technically work in Whirlpool, but they've a rubbish activation chance. Because the power itself doesn't inflict any damage or debuff upon activation (it just summons a pseudopet) you don't get a heightened chance of proc activation immediately upon casting... instead the pseudopet just gets one regular proc activation opportunity; then another proc activation opportunity after 10 seconds have elapsed. IMO if you've nowhere else to slot an Achilles' Heel and/or Annihilation "Chance for -Resistance Debuff" Proc; or you've have lots of enhancement slots going spare? Sure. But in Water Blast the likes of Steam Spray, Water Burst and Geyser are all going to have much higher proc activation chances.

Procs should work in Whirlpool. Although I'd not expect them to kick in hugely regularly. With a 25ft Radius, each 3.5PPM proc ought to have 15.3% chance of kicking in once every 10 seconds per enemy hit. Have you stuck a decent amount of accuracy in the power itself; and enabled Pet Damage Inflicted in your combat tab?

It was i27 Page 4 - see here - and there were a LOT of things affected... if memory serves, it was roughly 10% of all the NPC attacks in the game that got hit by the balance pass. However as far as I know they didn't actually list all the ENEMY attacks in any of the patch notes; only the PLAYER attacks. Note the bit "Previously, attacks checked for defense typings of any damage types involved in the attack. For example, most Ice Blast attacks are Cold/Smashing and when checked against a player's defenses, it would look at both Cold and Smashing defenses and use whichever was highest." so if an enemy attack has any smashing or lethal component at all then chances are that smashing or lethal typed defense used to work against it...

Yeah it's 3PPM base, same as Panacea. I'll regularly throw Power Transfer Procs into Stamina and any other passive recovery/endurance powers (Brute Energy Mastery is particularly good here with both Superior Conditioning and Physical Perfection) plus a Panacea Proc into Health, and it's pretty common to see all of them go off simultaneously. There was a time whenever only one copy of the Power Transfer Proc could kick in every 10 seconds if you slotted multiple copies into toggles/autos; but these days thankfully they all stack.

I'm guessing all these Welcome Popups are how you're able to enter door missions in the first place?

To be fair, I've had a copy of Progress Quest running for longer than I've been playing CoH... 🤣

Oh there's a lot of misinformation out there. Overwhelming Force being a flat 20% chance rather than 2.5 PPM is a common one (and I was guilty of that myself for a while). Accuracy Set Bonuses not inheriting properly to Pseudopets. Burn being better on a Tanker than a Brute. ... I'd better stop before I incriminate anyone... 🫢 Anyway. I suspect a lot of the "conventional wisdom" is taken third hand from the really obsessive builders (the guys who always spend days working out optimal attack chains including multiple convoluted aspects such as Build Up and -Res Proc durations and Scrapper Critical Hit ATO windows and even the ATBE of alternative attack animation choices... rather than the rest of us who just look up a few values on CoDv2 and plug them into their favourite PPM calculator and call it done). There's a definite trend there towards maximum damage output at the expense of everything else... perhaps because after a certain point CoH can become almost trivial to survive in indefinitely without "wasting" time activating powers that do something other than deal optimal damage. (don't get me started on the couple of basketcase math/testing heads who have deconstructed Arcanatime as "not accurate enough" and implemented their own bespoke truncation/rounding systems... as if there weren't already insufficient hours in the day for my OCD to run rampant...) But it's a game, not a stock exchange. Go have fun. By all means build for additional mitigation over damage if that's your preference (and/or you're struggling with certain content) 👍

To be fair, Banes are the Stalker analogue. IMO the best AoE Tool they have available is Placate. That said, a good Build Up (with a Gaussian Proc) + a procced-out Venom Grenade and Dark Obliteration spike is going to be dealing upwards of 700 damage in a huge radius; and following it up with Crowd Control will inflict a further 800+ in a 180 degree cone. Even without Build Up that combo will still output more than 1000 damage total every <15 seconds. Before Assault Hybrid and Crits. Rularuu, DE Quartzes, Defence Debuffs (see: ITF) and Vengenced Nemesis mobs are definitely going to cut a swathe through a Bane's Defenses, sure; but that's what Placate (especially since the revamp in i27p3) is for... and/or Orange Insps, Barrier, RoP and Melee Core Embodiment, etc. My Soldier tends not to bother too much with inherent +Res stacking and just go all-in on Stalkering; though I tend to run it as a Crabbermind more often than a Bane - Arachnos Bane Spider.mbd Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Crazy Antics (I've a /Kinetics Mastermind that AE Farms and a Fire Blaster that uses RoTP as part of their attack chain!) but I think VEATs can almost always be tweaked to cover whatever playstyle you want just fine... 🤷‍♂️ [EDIT:] I did a quick bit of back-of-napkin math on using Arctic Breath instead of Dark Obliteration in a "Build Up" alpha strike. Unfortunately due to the way the Gaussian Proc timings work, there is only a maximum of 0.727 seconds remaining buff duration after "Build Up + VenomGrenade + Arctic Breath". That's just about enough to squeeze a 'Pulverize' or a 'Bash' in (both of which have 0.5s Animation Time Before Effect) but not a Crowd Control or a Shatter... Gaussian Proc duration = 5.25s plus 0.5s ATBE = 5.75 seconds total time window 0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Build Up itself] 1.848 [Bane Venom Grenade] 1.188 [Dark Obliteration] 0.900 [Crowd Control's ATBE] = 4.603 seconds So perfectly doable even with server delays or a bit of fat-finger-syndrome going on! 🥳 0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Build Up itself] 1.848 [Bane Venom Grenade] 2.224 [Crowd Control] (Using this before DO is actually optimal since CC can slot a Fury of the Gladiator -Res proc then let DO clear up any stragglers) 0.800 [Dark Obliteration's ATBE] = 5.539 seconds Cutting it a bit close, but technically achievable...🤞 0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Build Up itself] 1.848 [Bane Venom Grenade] 2.508 [Arctic Breath] 0.900 [Crowd Control's ATBE] = 5.923 seconds Nope, sadly that last attack's never going to benefit from the Gaussian proc buff. 😠 0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Build Up itself] 1.848 [Bane Venom Grenade] 2.224 [Crowd Control] (let's try it this way around?) 1.167 [Arctic Breath's ATBE] = 5.906 seconds Unfortunately not. I'm starting to sense a pattern here... 😡 And on a Fortuna? 0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Aim itself] 2.640 [Spin] (Psi Tornado is 2.508 if you want to use it instead, but Spin can take a Fury of the Gladiator -res Proc) 1.188 [Dark Obliteration] 0.567 [Psychic Wail's ATBE] = 5.062 seconds Again, fine. 😛 0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Aim itself] 2.640 [Spin] 2.508 [Arctic Breath] 0.567 [Psychic Wail's ATBE] = 7.243 seconds Yeah, nope. 🤬

Nope. 'Cause Gloom and Dark Obliteration's higher raw DPA simply make Soul the optimal choice for both ST and AoE unless you're rocking enough Pets (including teammates) to justify going all-in on -res debuffs. Honestly, the difference between Spirit Shark and Gloom isn't huge providing you're leveraging Hunger stacks... but Dark Obliteration can reliably hit far more targets than Arctic Breath can; and that plus the much faster activation time tends to more than offset the inherent -res debuff. Whilst there's some argument for taking it on a Fortuna or Widow purely as a place to leverage the Achilles Heel -Res Proc... unless you're soloing a Pylon IIRC it will contribute roughly the same to your clear times as a regular 3.5 PPM damage proc. And even on teams, because multiple copies of the proc don't stack it can encounter some pretty harsh diminishing returns. Now on a Crabbermind VEAT? Getting maximum -res debuffs via Mace Mastery (for Shatter Armor) or Leviathan (for Arctic Breath) is definitely a viable way to approach your Epic Pool choices... and Spirit Shark's Hunger mechanic means that the Leviathan Mastery option has at least a partially-attractive prerequisite. However unfortunately whilst Arctic Breath can technically hit up to 10 targets, its narrow 30' arc makes hitting more than 1-2 foes an uncommon occurrence; its duration is half that of Shatter Armor and it inflicts only -15 base resistance debuffage to Shatter's -20 (and Crabs and Banes have plenty of better places to slot an Achilles' Heel Proc; so its ability to slot that is superfluous). The Coralax pet is also the worst of the four options (having "prefer melee" AI and therefore being highly suicidal, with no additional defense and lower damage output than the Widow). So sadly Leviathan still tends to get skipped in favour of Mace or Soul even on Crabberminds. But hey, at least it's not as bad as Mu... 🙈

Membrane HOs do nothing in Mind Link. I doesn't accept any regular Recharge Enhancements at all (which those HOs are technically typed as!) See top right corner of Mind Link's CoDv2 entry - it does allows slotting of regular ToHitBuff and DefenseBuff enhancements (but NOT Recharge enhancements!) as well as ToHitBuff and DefenseBuff Set IOs. This means the only way to get "+Recharge%" slotting into the power is to use IOs from ToHitBuff or DefenseBuff IO sets which contain some Recharge Rate Reduction. Regular Non-Set-IO Recharge Enhancements simply won't work (regardless of whether they're multi-aspect HOs or single-aspect SOs/Common Crafted IOs). An Alpha slot that grants +Recharge won't work either since that's also coded as a straight regular Recharge Enhancement. It has to be an IO from either a DefenseBuff or ToHitBuff Set (although a Global Recharge Bonus like a LoTG +7.5% will also work just fine) The reason that Mind Link still benefits from any Recharge Rate Reduction within these Set IOs is that it does NOT possess the "Disallow:RechargeTime" flag. This means it still gets affected by Recharge Rate buffs (including from enhancements providing they're of a type that it can accept!) So as things stand currently, a Lv50+5 Adjusted Targeting:Recharge IO plus two other multiple-aspect Def/Rech or ToHit/Rech IOs is probably the most slot-saving way to ED-cap Mind Link's Recharge... although most builds will benefit from ED-capping its Defense too. This has been the case for ages. See Player confirmation here too: