Bill Z Bubba

But if I were to solo level from 1 to 50 (properly, not like with that swipe-only/inv scrapper,) I could see going dark/shield. Tons of synergy there. Late edit: ah, hell, I ain't got nuthin better to do. dark/stone scrapper comin up.

Yup. 44.46% defense to all positions by level 19 with 3 defense SOs in the 6 SR powers + combat jumping. You get evasion at 12 and lucky at 18. I think that's why we're seeing things very differently. I focus on 50+ builds as I've mostly given up on leveling anything these days. My shield/nrg tank's last ITF solo time, after the phalanx fighting fix, at max diff with no insps/temps/amplifiers or faceplants was around 1:26, if I'm remembering correctly. (Found one screenshot at 1:30 but I remember beating that at some point.) Yes, I balance around IOs because they're available and easy to get. I may PL a build to 35 and load it up with basics and the normal uniques to get a better feel for it but for the most part everything I build follows the same rules if possible: Permahasten, very tight attack chains, softcap defense where I can, hardcap damres where I can, crank up HP, then regen. Specifically in that order. One of the biggest reasons I've found for this is just how many things in game I get to just plain ignore like stacked debuffs and end drains for no other reason that they never land. Whenever I've played sets like rad or fire armor, I've been dismayed by this. Right now, on scrappers at least, I'll always prefer the defense sets over the resist sets and do so entirely because of the 75% damres cap, with shield and sr leading the way mostly because of all the DDR they provide. I don't touch ice armor on anything because of its low DDR. And regen? It's at the bottom of the pack for me. Last note: I haven't taken elude since IOs were added to the game.

This. I have yet, after what.. two years now?, to create a single incarnate power from anything shard related. They all get converted to threads.

SR is a painful drag on the way up for scrappers, less so for brutes, but freaking awesome for tanks. At the end of that road, however, I place it just behind shield. As they say, late blooming but the bloom is good.

O.o Is there no cooldown on swapping builds?

He mad. 🙂 But I just got my 15th pt yesterday, so I expect that the next time a GM thinks I'm being abusive, I'll be perma-banned.

I'm in the "don't use 'em" camp. I have one final build per character and that's that. If I exemplar low enough that I lose the majority of my attacks, I switch tray 1 to tray 9 which has boxing, brawl, sands of mu and black wand waiting if needed.

I would certainly hope so if rectal bleaching is involved.

Yup. Wasn't the original forum cartel 10000 posts? I like watching the ratios between posts and reactions. The folks that have like 3 times the number of reactions to posts? They're the ones up to no good. Like the little cardboard target girl with the physics book in Men in Black.

Doubtful. We seem to have different build goals. Edit: And mine needs a respec to tighten it up.

I saw it. It would be certainly helpful to a team when teaming. Edit: And maybe for fleeing AVs. I still don't grok what's making them rabbit so hard these days.

Are all classes to be equal in teaming?

Until they get modded. Amazing what a 30 day ban does to one's posting style.

I vote claws/bio. It gives you the option of extra damage output vs extra mitigation. Edit: Yes, FA might let you dish out MORE damage, but a ton of slots have to be wasted on its various holes. I find it far more satisfying to spend less slots on better mitigation while dishing out enough to wipe out AVs in a tolerable amount of time.

There's already an incarnate option for DDR. Leave it be. Game's too farkin easy already. Let's not make the situation worse. My shield/nrg tank doesn't need to be even more unkillable. Edit: No, I'm not against FF users granting some DDR. Makes sense.

Yea, yea, I grok it. He's not the only person that wants to watch it all burn.

As I've stated many times around here, my fire/bio sent dies when I completely stop paying attention or I'm excessively drunk. This means it has happened more than once or twice. And that's running /bio in offensive mode for an even larger hit to damage mitigation. With an Inv or SR sent hovering? I chose to be a ground-ponder on those because I knew how ridiculously easy it would be to never die. Even my rad/regen fights in melee just so that there will be some level of challenge. But I can easily respec them into hover mode and be stupidly unkillable. But you seeing as much dirt eating as it seems... that's really your problem, and in no way a universal truth. I don't disagree with this other than that some people build for both. Yes, please, fix Opportunity. It's crap. But let's not make an already stupid, power-creeped to hell and back situation even worse. Please?

I'm confused. Until your post this seemed like a normal "huh, here's some data that I didn't expect, does anyone know what's up?" kinda thread.

Where "hack it" is defined as being the butt of every faceplant king joke on the forums. Can they be built and played not to die? Sure. But I've rarely actually watched one in action but for very rare players with very specific builds. And they sure as hell aren't going to get there until after 50.

Nope. The amount of incoming damage at range from critters is ridiculously lower than what comes in from melee. Sentinels have zero reason to be in melee as they have no damage auras and precisely zero melee attacks until anc/epic pools. Even T9s can be set off while hovering above a spawn and reach them all. Inferno radius 20', melee range 7'. You can absolutely choose to go melee-centric early on with pool powers and stalker level HP and mitigation but why bother? You stated you didn't know where these stories of immortal sentinels are coming from, so I told you. It ain't rocket surgery. I hover above the masses and blast them into dust with complete impunity. It's the very definition of tankmage.

I would guess from those that hover-blast. If you sit in melee all the time, you're going to take vastly more damage.

I didn't. But if you base changes off of flawed assumptions, you won't end up in a very good place. I suspect that with other AT-wide changes so far, whatever is done to sentinels will end up leaving them overpowered.

I was lookin for a new farmer. FA/RadMelee/Mu it is then. Maybe this time it'll work.

Any AT that solos poorly and only performs well on teams is badly balanced, especially given that end-game advancement, the ride to being fully T4ed, can be done while 100% solo, even with ATs that perform poorly solo. They exist and must be part of the comparison. If for no other reason but that to show just how bad Khels actually are.