Maelwys

Energy Resists is certainly loads higher, at the cost of a bit of Absorb and MaxHP, global recharge (unless you count the FF proc in RS), perception and endurance recovery. DPS looks pretty similar; aside from Irradiated ground (which will only be hitting 55% of the time against +3s with that setup - so your proc rate will suffer!) Slightly different way to build but nothing wrong with that - just goes to highlight how you can personalise a build a bit and still have a good level of performance. I'm not sure about the HOs in RS - admittedly I'm a bit biased against HOs in favour of IOs... but if I was aiming to get a bit more healing then I might aim for something like the below. (Basically I've swapped the sets in DS and RS around so that the only thing you lose is 10% global recharge, but RS heals for far bigger numbers. And since MaxHP can now break 3k without the Performance Shifter 3-piece set bonus in Stamina, my OCD will let me swap it for a Power Transfer Proc for even more passive healing!) And with that I think I'll step away from Mids for a while... could easily spend half my day in there, it's like linksurfing on tvtropes!

The Datachunk you posted was identical to the one I posted earlier (did you export the one you'd been working on?) but judging by those maximum HP, Endurance and Recovery values I'd guess that you're missing your Accolades (the +20% HP and +10% Endurance) and the "Ageless" Desitiny Incarnate. Maybe they're added in but not actually toggled on? The resistances being a bit under is probably due to the "Superior Might of the Tanker" set (which I had slotted into Proton Sweep, but it can be moved elsewhere) not being toggled on. In practice you can usually keep about 2 stacks of that up, assuming that it's in an AoE ability and you're actually using the power it's slotted into fairly regularly... so IMO it makes sense to include at least one stack in your character building. Another thing to be careful of when build tweaking is accuracy slotting - at endgame you'll usually be fighting things that are +3 to you (technically they'll be level 54, but you'll end up with a +1 level boost as well due to your incarnate slots) so it's a good idea to build with those sort of foes in mind. If you go into Mids and pick Options menu -> Configuration and then go to the "exemping and base values" tab you will see a number that you can edit called "Base ToHit". Change that from the default value of 75 to 48 and press OK. All your abilities will then end up listing accuracy values that will actually be useful to you (you'll want 95% accuracy to be "capped" versus regular level 54 mobs - see here for the maths) If you've been hunting around in different Radiation Melee build threads then you'll probably notice that slotting Irradiated Ground can get a bit tricky. In theory you'll want as many -resistance debuff procs and damage procs in it as possible, since IG has double the regular chance to activate procs compared to a regular damage aura (these normally have one chance to proc every 10 seconds, but IG creates a new damaging pesudopet every 5 seconds). However in order for those procs to actually do anything IG needs to be able to reliably hit your enemies - and IG is NOT autohit so ideally you'll want to get it up to 95% accuracy against level 54 mobs, the same as all your other powers. The build I posted is able to do that via one level 50 +5 Accuracy IO.

There're plenty of others floating around, but here's an example to get the neurons firing. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1493;723;1446;HEX;| |78DA4D93CB4F137110C767DB2DD0D2F22A501E2DD052EC9342518F8618812AD0848| |8F166C85A96B2D014427BD0A389CFAB1E38999878E2427C5D3D18BD7AF5FD07680C| |68F46414D7E97EC77637693FF39BFDCDCC77E6F7DBFC9519EF7EEEDA3429DE3325A| |D5259B9A09537F51D575E2B1A05AA3DCDFC0BC1BB32A3AFE9E58A9E595E37F4D2EA| |FF6550DEE6F592AE67CE6BAB865635B6CA589377696BAB9459D4B56DA35CF4588BE| |56D5D5FF559E69C515CAFF28B56AC4AB5A57F76DB28644EEF14AA466125AF55AAFA| |CED53E5691E6DF8C8FFF949A2ED3453D6C64556AE9A8D14D9E6EB07788197353340| |2C602CC904AFB315BEC1A597B1D45E13AD86480DE0DB06D93AC1AB35C5741ACAACC| |39AD772D39D0330F4E2C38ADBDD99FE023AEE7947ACE37F0A96F85EFC0A6F7A0F70| |3D8F611CC713D1762C99582965E3E8A66F89466E97DFC88ACDECEF27EB725D02477| |18FBCFB1AF5572B4CAFE00E7F0117CBE41D47ACC3ADB4567BBCCA543E6D22173E99| |2B974C95C7A652EF39CAC13B18E4EA99194F39890F3789E20F2A3A6D3FFC061F9BA| |1FD6E8A2E47DA65FA5893D8715FB8CB5F488BE9E0DEC9DE31A01D117F88C59F77D1| |11EA087C4246A25B2C213E002C7F64B6CFF6FE41BF8233C02837FC1215348C8F923| |4E3428B18303E83B780A3A470E1DD6DCC3AFB10E4F2326FC02FD4478CE2139AB909| |CDF907091350DCB3C8645E788E81F390E66A790EF09CF23221A2231E81B8D0B13C2| |24184D414B348ED8A71C3B26B163D755CB77EC86F0A6F01618BB2DBC032AAC3F2EE| |71097DE9DEC4B49BE94E84D8BDEF49450FA193F29F7F317B4B8393623F932724F46| |D93729BEC94FD09E50EBDFA81954491E9348342CDA7D6EC42CA912C23E258A7D079| |E7A1EA271F80EEDBE387CDF1A3E85C2D09ABC087DDF1BEF1C7457EEED3D30BB8BDA| |AF92F5EFC97C99ACF763EEF285CF4A1FE9EE86BD17615BF6E4020DBFF52CD8822E7| |B1AB666B32FD9EC259BFD35DAB0FF01C1CAD849| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Heightened Senses gives typed rather than positional defence, so it doesn't really care if they're ranged or melee. Rise to the Challenge likes having at least one foe within melee range in order to increase your regeneration rate though. Some example numbers from my old SS/WP's i24 build are below (this is with Tough and Weave active and one foe in RTTC range, but no incarnates except for the Alpha Slot) and it's pretty cheap + far from optimised by HC standards...

To throw a few actual numbers at it... back in the "Olden Days" Pre-ED, you could six-slot things: + Instant Healing is +600% (Unenhanceable) +200% (Enhanceable). 6-slotted (Pre ED) that would have worked out at: +1199.6% Regen. + Integration is +50% (Unenhanceable) +100% (Enhanceable) 6-slotted (Pre ED) that would have worked out at: +349.8% Regen. + Fast Healing is +75% (Enhanceable) 6-slotted (Pre ED) that would have worked out at: +224.85% Regen. + "Health" wasn't a factor unless you took the fitness pool, so typically on top of this you'd just have the 100% Base Regeneration that everyone gets. + "Dull Pain" you could *just barely* get "perma" by 6-slotting it for recharge; which meant it granted +40% Maximum HP. With accolades, you can bring that up to 2142 HP (Scrapper cap is 2409 HP) So a pimped-out Pre-ED Regen Scrapper would have been sitting at about 1874.25% Regen total, applied to 2142HP. That works out at a grand total of 167.2901 HP/Second (Base regeneration is 5% HP every 12s. Extra regen shortens the time between ticks. So it's 2142.17*0.05=107.1085 HP regenerated every 12/1874.25%=0.640256 seconds) Admittedly, power values will have changed a bit over time from patch to patch even leaving aside ED... but that's a rough ballpark number. Now to give a few very rough modern-day comparisons... (i) My Kat/Regen's i24 build has capped (2409.52) HP and normally regenerates 71.25 HP/Second. (Plus a little extra from Panacea etc). When Instant Healing is active (roughly 50% uptime), that rises to 172 HP/Second. However they also have softcapped Melee Defence and between 50%-60% S/L Damage Resistance (depending on their current HP level) before incarnates. (ii) My SS/WP Tanker's i24 build has 3411.46 HP (Tanker Cap is 3534) and with one foe inside of RTTC Range, it regenerates 140.24 HP/Second. However they also have softcapped Typed Defence to everything except Psionic and hardcapped (90%) S/L Resistance. So in terms of raw regeneration rate, modern-day scrappers probably still can't meet the old pre-ED performance values; as even WP Tankers will struggle to reach it. However, in terms of actual Damage Mitigation (Defence, Resistance, Absorption) and Damage Output (Set Bonuses, Procs, Incarnates, etc) the modern-day equivalents are miles ahead.

Not on a Scrapper, no. Regeneration on a SENTINEL is considerably better though. You can certainly IO-out Regen Scrappers, and if you pair them with a primary like Broadsword or Katana then you can get very decent levels of regeneration and resistance whilst hitting the "59%" Incarnate content defence softcap. But that level of performance has very little to do with your secondary powerset. Almost everything regeneration brings to the table, willpower can do better (hitting the scrapper maximum HP cap is a little easier on regen) - but hey, it's still thematic. Even if you'll never actually be "the best you are at what you do" (TM)... 😉

I've covered that already, no less than three times: I'm really not sure how many more ways I can put this. It's beginning to feel a bit like a certain scene from Red Dwarf... I'll try one last time: Because it would only grant an extremely minor theoretical average benefit over time, but in practice the build's endurance recovery would be become much less consistent/reliable. "PS Proc + PS EndMod" vs "Two regular +5 EndMod IOs" ---> In order for the PS proc to become the better option you'd need to always be sitting at under 90% Endurance, but never bottoming out. Therefore you'd have to continually carefully juggle the use of your powers in such a manner that you remain under 90% and above 0% endurance regardless of how often the PS proc actually kicks in. And that is highly impractical. No worries, likewise I'm not trying to argue, merely trying to explain the reasoning for my decision. The explanations I've given have all related to my earlier post where I listed five recovery slotting options. One of those options was slotting a second EndMod IO into Stamina. The build I posted currently has a second EndMod IO in Stamina. If you took that IO out and replaced it with a PS proc then you'd still be at least one enhancement slot short of the "ideal" (which is to have all the Healing uniques plus both a second EndMod IO AND a PS proc in Stamina). And therein lies the problem. Ordinarily I'd figure out a build's optimal attack chain and calculate its Endurance consumption, then build the character so that they meet that consumption plus a little extra for leeway. However it's very difficult to do this for a Crabbermind because the powers they use will vary wildly depending on the situation (buffs, AOE, ST). The most foolproof method would be to drop all the slots in Health and Stamina and just use Ageless instead of Barrier... but doing that negatively impacts your pets' survivability... so we're brought back to the original point that Crabbermind builds are ridiculously tight on enhancement slots and getting everything you could possibly want on them simultaneously is impossible. So the best solution I can come up with is to produce a build that ticks all the boxes for sufficient recharge, damage output and survivability... then try to get as much reliable endurance recovery as possible using the remaining enhancement slots.

Willpower. Whilst it needs heavy IO investment to reach it, WP's performance ceiling is higher than Stone or Invulnerability. Softcapped Defence (with the fighting pool and enough set bonuses), Hardcapped Resistances, Respectible Maximum HP and bucketloads of Regeneration. Has no holes. But has absolutely nothing that adds to your damage output (unless you count the additional endurance recovery)

That's probably fairly accurate. Personally I'd usually go "sufficient recharge" --> "damage output" --> "survivability". And for survivability I'd prefer softcapped defences first, then a mixture of resistances and maximum HP before looking too much into regeneration. I'm not sure if people tend to drastically overvalue regeneration set bonuses due to the reputation that regen scrappers enjoyed back in the day...?

Because whenever your build has exceedingly few "spare slots", including all of the potentially useful supportive IOs (such as the +Health and +Stamina uniques) becomes impossible. So you need to choose which ones to include based upon the performance boost each brings to the character. That's why I included the comparison between the various endurance slotting options above: If a build only has one spare slot to use for boosting recovery, then it will only be able to choose ONE of those five options (likely panacea) and with two spare slots it can choose TWO (panacea and miracle?) etc. The build I posted has enough spare slots for four of them, which means that it needs to drop one. The PS proc was the one that didn't make the cut. In my last post I was pointing out that the reason I personally treat PS as the "least desirable" option is because it has only has a Proc rate of 25%. This means that it is unreliable. Over the course of a minute it has a 18.00% chance of not kicking in (see cumulative binomial probability) compared to the "always active" additional recovery from a second IO in Stamina... and the theoretical performance difference between them is so slight (0.04 End/Sec) that PS becomes less attractive. Panacea technically suffers from the same issue, but its higher proc rate of 50% means that it is much more reliable in practice than PS - over the course of a minute it has only a 1.56% chance of not kicking in, and its theoretical performance is also considerably higher. Unfortunately due to the slotting constraints it's not simply a case of "slotting a PS proc into stamina", it's a case of "deciding what to give up in order to free up an enhancement slot in order to slot a PS proc into stamina". And as it stands each of the "loose" IOs in that particular build are already performing functions which grant more benefit (to my mind anyway) than a PS proc would give. A similar notion applies for +perception (for example). Taking the Rectified Reticle unique and/or Power Pool Tactics would be potentially useful- they'd bring the character to the perception cap. But in order to include them you'd need to drop other IOs and power picks, and that trade-off simply wouldn't be worth it outside of very specific situations e.g. Stalker hunting in PVP.

It does in terms of average recovery over time... but since it's coded as a chance to kick in every 10s, in practice it's a lot more 'spikey'. The proc rate is a lot lower than panacea - and I've found that often I won't see any endurance spikes from PS for ages, or it'll kick in whenever I'm already full and get "wasted". That's why I noted "and for the sake of only 0.04 End/Sec difference I'd rather have the guaranteed recovery from the 2nd Stamina slot than the "chance of" Endurance from the PS Proc." - although admittedly that's probably getting into the territory of personal preferences. By all means, work it into your build if you feel like doing so!

Yep, you'll notice my example build does the same thing for Ranged defence. It's not bulletproof but it lets you maintain a decent balance across the rest of the build. Similar deal for the S/L resistances and the extra 10% you'll gain as you take damage via the reactive defences unique. Void is great for Judgement. The damage debuff is guaranteed and lasts for ages, very useful in hard fights. Lore is a matter of personal preference (there's a Google document floating around with a full numbers breakdown) - the Arachnos ones are thematic but for pure Damage it's hard to ignore Banished Pantheon. And plenty of the supportive ones have a "+5% defence to everything" AoE toggle.

Lack of slots, mainly. Crab builds are quite tight, especially if you're trying to fit in permapets and softcapped defence/decent resists and HP and still proc-out and ED-cap the damage on your main attacks... (i) The Performance Shifter Unique grants +10% End at 1.5 PPM Slotted into Stamina, it has a 25% chance of activating every 10 seconds. That's an average of 2.5 Endurance every 10 seconds, or 0.25 End/Sec. (ii) The Miracle Unique grants Recovery, which works based off your maximum Endurance (buffable by set bonuses and accolades etc) In the build above, it's an average of 0.29 End/Sec (iii) The Numina Unique grants Regen and Recovery, which works based off your Maximum HP and Endurance pools. In the build above, it's an average of 0.19 End/Sec and 2.22 HP/Sec. (iv) The Panacea Unique grants +7.5% End and a set amount of HP (53.8126) at 3 PPM Slotted into Health, it has a 50% chance of activating every 10 seconds. That's an average of 3.75 Endurance every 10 seconds, or 0.375 End/Sec and 2.69063 HP/Sec (v) The Second +5 Endurance IO in Stamina grants 0.21 End/Sec. So for raw Endurance recovery, the priority is technically Panacea > Miracle > Performance Shifter > 2nd Stamina Slot > Numina. However Numina grants a bit of Regen, which I tend to weight a bit higher on builds without any regular self-healing... and for the sake of only 0.04 End/Sec difference I'd rather have the guaranteed recovery from the 2nd Stamina slot than the "chance of" Endurance from the PS Proc. If you really wanted to fit the PS Proc in that example build too, then you could drop the Rech/ToHit IO from Aim or the Defence IO from Combat Training:Defensive; but each of those would come with a tradeoff (you'd end up going well over the Proc cap on Guassian in Aim, and you'd drop under the softcap for Ranged Defence) I know Crabs tend to be very Endurance hungry, but you don't need to run all the toggles all the time; and there are plenty of Temp Powers or Accolades (Geas of the Kind Ones springs to mind) that can help in a pinch. Worst case you can just swap to Ageless instead of Barrier if you find yourself having real difficulties. Although admittedly my own Crabber tends to run with a Bot/Kin MM, so I'm used to on-demand Speed Boost and Transference... 🙂

The Mu Striker's damage is pants. Their only advantage is that they stay at range. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/entity.html?entity=pets_patron_powers_mu_striker I ballparked the DPS of each of the Patron Pool's Pets a while back (see attached) - the exercise was carried out for my VEAT Widow; but the same powersets hold true on a Crab. Widow_PatronPets.txt

If you're talking about the SoulBound Allegiance Proc rather than the Gaussian's; the way it functions is a 5.25s buff that kicks in 0.5 seconds into a power animation. (see https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=set_bonus.set_bonus.boost_up ) Consider the Spiderlings. They have two attacks - "Chain Gun" which animates in 1.848s and recharges in 3.8s; and "Claw" which animates in 0.924s and recharges in 2s. If the Build Up proc kicked in during "Chain Gun" then it wouldn't affect the damage of that first Chain Gun; but the effect would persist for 3.902s after it finished animating (5.75-1.848) so in theory the NEXT "Chain Gun" attack could benefit from it; even though there'd only be a window of overlap of 0.102s. However in practice that time window is usually a bit too narrow for the combat AI, so the buff ends up wasted unless the Spiderlings are in melee... If the Build Up proc kicked in during "Claw then it wouldn't affect the damage of that first Claw; but the effect would persist for 4.826s after it finished animating (5.75-0.924) and the next "Claw" attack could comfortably benefit from it; with a window of overlap of 2.826s. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/entity.html?entity=pets_patron_powers_arachnobot_spiderling The Disruptors have more powers to chain - Disruptor Bolt, Disruptor Blast and Disruptor Tesla (at range) and Claw (in melee). They're still limited by animation time, but they cycle faster. In theory they could get three of those powers into the buff time window ("Claw" plus any two of the ranged powers) but in practice it's much more likely to only affect two of them. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/entity.html?entity=pets_patron_powers_arachnobot_disrupter Finally, the Epic Pool Pet. The Blood Widow has by far the most attacks of all of the Patron pets. Best case the Proc could activate in Spin or Poison Dart and then affect three other powers (Swipe, Strike and one other) during the buff time window. However it could also activate in Slash or Eviscerate and only affect two other powers. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/entity.html?entity=pets_patron_powers_blood_widow So the Proc will be "useful" in all of the pets... but which is optimal to slot it in? One thing to consider here is the number of pets affected - you have three Spiderlings and two Disruptors but only one Blood Widow. The Spiderling's attacks aren't as frequent or damaging as the Blood Widow due to the level difference... but the proc will be firing off twice or three times as often. In my experience this is actually weighted towards the Widow; since on average the proc will affect 3 Spiderling Claw attacks in the same period of time as it'll affect 2-3 Widow melee attacks... but the Widow attacks are much more powerful. For the Disruptors, on average the proc will affect 4 Disruptor attacks in the same period of time as it'll affect 2-3 Widow attacks. The Widow attacks are still considerably more powerful, but the Disruptors do have two advantages. First, their damage is mainly *RANGED* - so they'll be merrilly shooting at everything whilst the Widow is still running from mob to mob. Secondly, they deal mainly energy damage to the Widow's lethal damage (which tends to be much more heavily resisted) So in terms of "raw damage output" it's very close between the Disruptors and the Widow. But there are two other things to consider: (i) Disruptors are less suicidal than the Blood Widow. (ii) Venom Grenade debuffs the damage resistance of Toxic damage twice as much as other types. And a good chunk of the Widow's damage is Toxic. So my advice is that if you find you're able to keep the Widow alive for its entire duration; then slot the Soulbound Allegiance proc into it. Otherwise, go with the Disruptors. Now personally, I lean towards the Blood Widow - but that's because my Crabber doesn't lack for ranged damage, and by using either Darkest Night or the Support Incarnate alongside its regular auras it can push the Widow to the defence softcap.

Quite right. Unfortunately that might not work quite as well in this particular case with such a melee-centric build - their attack chain is essentially Slice/ArmLash/Frenzy/Kick with the occasional usage of Gloom and Venom Grenade. However if they were rocking Channelgun/Longfang/Supression/FG/VG then 100% Hovercrabbermind of Doom all the way! A quick fix would be to swap one of the Unbreakable Guard 4-piece sets for a Gladiator Armor 3-piece; the unique could be moved out of CrabArmor to free up another IO slot... or just swap the extra LOTG Def in Combat Jumping to a Karma -KB.

Overall it looks grand 👍 Several of the IOs haven't been boosted up to +5 (when you're placing the IO, just tap the NumPad "+" symbol a few times in Mids) but there's nothing that leaps out at me as too out of place. It's a lot more melee-centric than my example build, but that's just a question of playstyle... 🙂 You've a little bit of leeway left with your Melee and Ranged Defences - I make those 43.87% and 43.64% respectively whenever everything is boosted to +5 (apart from the LOTG +rechs which you'll likely want to leave attuned). Remember that you'll be getting at least +5% from Barrier constantly, plus another +8% from Support when you need it (~50% uptime) so you'll end up a bit over the regular softcap point. (e.g. you could comfortably drop the Guassian set from Tactics or one of the Unbreakable Guard sets from Tough/Fortification) I'm actually a big fan of putting the Guassian Proc into Aim: its proc rate remains capped (90%) as long as you have less than 70.85% worth of slotted recharge; which means that you can cram a level 50 +5 Rech/End/ToHit IO plus a level 50 +1 Rech IO into Aim as well without any negative impact on its proc rate. The only real gap I can see is Knockback Protection. At present you're only sitting on Mag 4 which is "OK"... but might cause some issues if you're going to be in melee taking most of the hits instead of your pets. I mentioned the most useful breakpoints for KB protection in another thread fairly recently - I'd aim for Mag 7 or Mag 8 if at all possible.

There're a good few Crabberminds about; it's certainly a fun build. I like duoing a Crabber with my Bot/Kin MM for maximum carnage - all those pets sitting at Defence and Damage caps result in absolute glorious pet bedlam. Few things worth noting - firstly you only need ~185% Global recharge plus Hasten to make the pet durations permanent. Also, it's quite possible for VEATs to effectively cap Defence on their Pets (10% from the Globals + 20-21% from double maneuvers = 30-31%. Then +5% from Barrier and/or 8% from Support Radial and/or ~13-14% from Darkest Night and/or +5% from Lore Pets... and Blood Widow also gets another +5%!) whilst keeping the pets permanent and your own Defense, Resistance and Maximum HP sky high. Finally, there are a few IO sets that are "new" to HC that are worth looking into for Crabbers- "Bombardment" for Targeted AoE Damage being the main one that springs to mind. Example build below, it can trade Longfang for a different attack (such as Arm Lash, Frenzy, FG etc) by swapping its position with one of the power pool abilities. Personally I hate the redraw from the Soldier attacks, so I'd avoid Burst, but YMMV! | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1501;732;1464;HEX;| |78DA5D94594F135114C7EF6C400B95A5B46587D696B2B530263E138240C29260206| |87C69463A81499AB6B625D147BF831188269AF8E48B0FE206EA83895FC3047C1154| |0459128C113C9DFF29AD3699FCEE3DF7FCCF36773A75FB4AD5B3B1BB8342F20E278| |C6C36369431E61793A96C6C2695885B66A6626A2967E4AC545211F42BA727F4BF4B| |363A9C316EC666D256DCCC148CA1D98C6125ADE4426CCC882F98B97F9D0A87A26A3| |A954A44274D234D3B97BD19B5161673B4AB2E1C9120BB68A59DF67E266D9A71EF48| |DA9A8FCE8D0CCD52BAA5446CCAC8E6CCCC9D06AAAE9B9E3A51F89D6962991076087| |985B90A563C00EB1FE6A98AE0075908B72A9E57D25EB2B54234D0A25515AFC926C1| |26491E5AE8AAD0EBF3243D59159C694A42B5CFD424330596DD022BFA149B5ECEE52| |19506ADAC3D219BAE89B247B21DB7E7A90C5F1A7939D753CEB9D7A91E076C8AC383| |3A9CA30A380EB64D702EF2AAE45954FE51EDB3AA53A6D06CD648609DACD99A36AE2| |F3F4F17F7E6BA877817EE3397C19A15B06E15F47F0137286935D75DED17767C897A| |A9452DA2B609B6B7E4E7663FF7655C31851E0FF7E739423FDE63B0E304F4FF429E3| |5D2FBD8D7A7E3ACA19F79093E4D3EBCC75A8ADBC8BE8D3CCBA63D8E7BC0710FA179| |41719BB9F7E66D9CB5EC30BFF28CBF8191EFCC5D9E05E569E59E5AB9F700D9DAF90| |EB5F7C2D6C17C49B902FC8E027B78FF17F79907CC23DC87E01672048F85CDF7A40D| |B136C4DACE9F4CD6761E82E14D68C33BB8F3BF69DBC53D7645E0D31D65F63307F83| |EEAC8DFB32DDBB35C7309D18BBC4AEF2BF8F4BD61AE3337C053CA13E51AA39FF27A| |87E8DF646E313F23AE3E088D3E8C7CEFA8BF019EE54004F39A50CFBFD1B316F5FC5| |B1782EFD464A9CD8138D32A4BC82605E1B7EB2CF9D639F68F525B176C7B459B2CE6| |706FC2E3923DC3881F33DD2FFA48A203BA7AE6633701B9CFFAE80F43E7DAC77CC5F| |549897DC25D5C7F0C14B5D79C45FBF592F58D92F5D592F55F6CD7E84A| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

True. To fix that particular issue I'd probably swap Weave to a 6-piece Reactive Defences set and move the Shield Wall unique into one of the others (Grant Cover? Maneuvers?)... but to be honest that build has more holes in it than just "too many LoTGs". The biggest is that it's only softcapped providing you're never attacking or being attacked (see: attack supression on Hide); but its main attacks could also do with more procs, Chain Induction and Shield Charge's 6-piece set bonuses are both irrelevant; the slotting of One with the Shield, Lightning Rod, the Leadership toggles and Stamina are all a little bizzare; and it's extremely endurance hungry so Ageless will be 100% required. It's *playable*, but I'd not call it *optimised*.

Disclaimer: I've played the attached on an i24 test server, but I've not rolled it up on Homecoming yet. Defensively it's got softcapped Positionals (whilst Hide and Stealth are under attack supression and without Destiny or Hybrid Incarnates active) Capped S/L resists with One With the Shield running, or 40% without it. 1861 HP normally, 2088 HP (capped) with OOtS running. Aid Self, plus the Panacea and Absorb Procs. Decent endurance recovery: 2.82 End/Sec + Panacea (roughly another +0.4125) normally, or 3.37 End/Sec + Panacea with OOtS. Stealthcapped if you toggle Sprint on. Extremely Mobile: Combat Jumping, Superjump + Superspeed plus the Lightning Rod + Shield Charge teleports. Offensively it's tailored towards AoE and it hits like an exploding Freight Train. Most of the important attacks are procced, and the ATOs reliably kick in to rehide or recharge Build Up (which has Gaussian for extra Oomph). It has Ball Lightning for an extra AoE (to chain with Jacob's Ladder and Chain Induction between the Lightning Rods and Shield Charges!) Between Elec's built-in sleeps, the Knockdown proc in JL and the Immob proc in BL it actually also has a little bit of CC. Edit: Since this is an i24 build it doesn't take the "Zapp" Snipe, so to bring it up to i25+, swap Mu Bolts --> Zapp and slot 5x pieces of the Sting of the Manticore set into it (skipping the Dmg/Interrupt/Rech piece) plus an Apocalypse Proc. Then move the spare enhancement slot from Stealth into Super Speed and slot 2x Blessings of the Zephyr into it to keep your Ranged Defence softcapped. The optimum ST attack chain works out at AS -> CI -> JL -> Zapp -> AS -> CI -> JL -> BL/HC with Hasten running, but you'll need to take Ageless Core Epiphany to keep that up indefinitely on a Pylon. Stalker - Electric_SD IOed.mxd

The perception bonus stacks too actually. Admittedly it's only really noticible in specific niche situations, but if memory serves (and a check on https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Limits#Stealth_and_Perception backs me up here) a VEAT running 2x Tactics and a rectified reticle IO is the only toon that can spot a Stealth-Capped Stalker solo at a reasonable distance (The Stalker lights up when they're 117.6ft away, as opposed to 10ft away for regular mortals). I remember funning around with them in RV back on live.

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Knockback/Enemies_with_Knockback_Powers Mag 4+ KB Protection is "good enough for most content" Mag 7 is the next notable breakpoint: "good enough for the vast majority of gameplay". It stops your Gales, Hurls, Lifts, Levitates, Energy Torrents, etc. Mag 8 closes the gap a little bit further. That stops Hamidon's Electrolite Blasts, the Clockwork TK Blast/Antimatter beams, and Devouring Earth Hurls/Footstomp/Thorn Blasts; and Hurricane/Psi Tornados. At this point you're essentially covered against nearly all encounters versus the major enemy groups. Mag 9 stops Longbow Warden's Force Bolts and Fake Nemesis' Staff Bolts, which is the last of the major enemy groups completely covered. Mag 10 stops some specific AV abilities and Shivan Slams/Strikes/Smashes. Mag 11 basically just stops another few specific AV abilites and Proximity Mines. Anything above that (with the notable exception of a few Elite Boss "Longbow Warden" abilities at Mag 16) is firmly in the realm of specific AVs/GM abilities only. ...so really it's only worth going above Mag 8 if you regularly fight Nemesis or Longbow Bosses.

I'm not 100% sure if hami-Os can be slotted into the upgrade powers or not... but I wouldn't be surprised if they could. However, it's important to note that whilst the level 6 and level 32 powers "unlock" extra abilities on your pets - they don't actually contain those abilities. They give your pets a passive power that functions like a boolean variable. If it's TRUE, then your summoned pet pets can use their extra abilities. If it's FALSE then they can't. In other words... if you want to increase the effectiveness of your Ember Demon's shields or heals (for example) then you should slot Ribosome or Golgi HOs into your Summon Demons power, not into the Enchant Demon or Abyssal Empowerment powers.

Agree with the above posters that your Primary makes a big difference. For +Defence, Thugs (Enforcer Maneuvers) and Robots (Protector Bot bubbles) are also worth looking at. Regarding supplemental abilities that can assist with general survivability, your Incarnate slot choices are going to grant the biggest boosts, however there are a few others that are available earlier (such as Bonfire at level 35+ from the Epic pool, slotted with a KB->KD IO) I posted my Bot/Kin build recently here with a breakdown of the Incarnate slots etc that I found helpful. It regularly farms +4/8 maps solo, so it's definitely possible to get there. AVs/GMs can get a little trickier but they're mostly doable if you leverage your siphons.

That's a common misconception about pseudopets such as Bonfire. Procs tend to either apply to either the owner of a power (e.g. buff procs), or to the "target" of a power (e.g. damage procs). And unfortunately after a psuedopet is summoned, its ongoing affects are produced by powers belonging to the psuedopet, rather than by powers belonging to the player. This means that any "owner affecting" procs (such as the Force Feedback +Rech proc) will only affect you on the initial summoning of Bonfire. (The way the powers within Bonfire are coded is visible here - note that there's an entity called bonfire that in turn uses an autohit damaging power called bonfire - this "sub power" is what actually deals damage to mobs!) However target-affecting procs definitely still apply - the problem is that they won't show up in your combat log, because they don't affect YOUR powers but those of the pseudoet... so it's difficult to tell when they activate. The jury's still out on exactly how often these are able to kick in (some say it's every 2 second tick, others claim there's a lockout period of 10 seconds). However I did a quick + dirty test this evening in a PVP Zone (Warburg). I had my Bot/Kin MM repeatedly spam bonfire on another toon (my second account's EM/Rad Scrapper) whilst the target toon had their "Real Numbers" display showing their current Smashing Resistance value, so that I could see in realtime whenever the -Res proc kicked in. I only activated Bonfire 20 times to get a very rough feel for it; but out of those 20 casts I observed 11 instances where the proc kicked in; and only 2 of those were at the very start of the casting of bonfire. On one of those tests I even observed the -res proc kicking in twice in a row back-to-back during the same casting of Bonfire (first at the very start, and then again immediately after the first effect expired, so about 10 seconds in!). Another time when the proc kicked in it was at the very end of bonfire's duration, and the -res effect remained for 5-6 seconds after bonfire expired. If we assume that Psuedopets allow a Proc check every 10 seconds, then that works out roughly on par with what I'd expect from my Kin's ~13.11% chance of the proc activating in their Bonfire. (e.g. 20x casts of Bonfire with 5x chances to proc over their duration, so 100 chances to proc total. 11 Procs observed = 11/100 = 11% Proc activation) I imagine that's why Photon Grenade is performing better for you - I had a Bot/Dark and a Bot/Traps back on live, and Bot/Traps was my main for rather a long time. To the extent that back when I first rolled my Bot/Kin I really expected that I'd miss Trip Mine and Poison Trap so much that I'd give up and reroll it... I know that /Traps has a ridiculous amount of Crowd Control and survivability compared to a /Kin; so I suspect that aspect of Bonfire is probably wasted for you? On my Bot/Kin, I'll sometimes take a while to kill an AV, but large mobs just melt - so my problem is never "killing things faster" but "trying to keep my henchmen alive" (mainly the protector bots) whilst they're standing in the middle of an immense crowd of mobs that are all +4 to me. Bonfire is the main thing that allows that toon to pull half the map and keep its 'bots alive long enough for everything to start burning. At least between Incarnate Buffs. If I'm being perfectly honest, I'd not miss the -res much (if at all) if I dropped Bonfire, but that 25ft radius constant guaranteed knockdown is a total lifesaver.