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There are so many ways to build VEATs that I'm reluctant to pick at any given build... but can you explain what sort of content you want to run with this character? The main thing that jumps out at me is the early dive into pools (Kick at lvl 4, Hover at level 6). Generally, I won't fault a build for trying to get certain T3 pool powers near level 20, but Soldiers of Arachnos usually don't need the Fighting pool so early, and the final slotting of those powers looks odd to me (versus the alternatives). I apologize if this comes across as cruel, but this is not my intention: This looks like a build that is trying to leverage every possible Resistance set bonus with very little regard to how the character will play. Perhaps I should pass the baton to @Omega-202 ?

Absolutely fair to say. I'd also suggest that you NEVER slot the PVP "Fast Snipe ALWAYS" piece, as you will be sacrificing damage. Since you can get the fast snipe any time (with its fast damage) it will be very rare that you would be 'wasting' either damage or time in any meaningful way for most content. As you revisit rebuilds, keep in mind the bonus damage Snipes get from ToHit buffs (up to a maximum from +22% ToHit). If you can have the Kismet: Accuracy (really +ToHit) in an active (or auto) power, you will be getting that bonus on your Snipe damage.

This is practically how I would play my EM Tank as well, so the new mechanic (while somewhat distracting) hasn't bothered me too much.

If by "low end" you are referring to low-performing sets: My initial thought would be to help those sets out in a way which doesn't obviously affect them from the PoV of DPS formula (e.g. damage, activation time, recharge), but should improve the QoL of those powers. How about cutting endurance costs for the under-performing sets? As near as I can tell, it is the all-powerful metric of 'Kill Speed' that determines if a set is 'under performing'. I'm well aware of the available options for improving MaxEnd, EndCost and Recovery... and the relative cost/utility for spending slots to improve each. I don't think that reducing endurance costs across-the-board would do much more than free up a single slot (or alter a few slot choices) on some builds... but freeing some of the build constraints for under-performers by reducing Endurance costs might be an acceptable compromise.

With the exception of a few posts by @oedipus_tex and @ThrillMill, I didn't see much in the way of exploring my choices in a Mind/Poison/Primal Force Controller. This started out as a pure-concept character ('flavor' over 'crunch'), but I soon got frustrated with the pitiful damage so I opted to dive into proc-monstering to try to smooth out the offensive performance. I'd played controllers before, but I had been on a run of playing DPS toons and I simply couldn't readjust my attitude completely! A few comments on this build: I'll show the level 50 build. While leveling (which was slow) The ATOs were in different powers, and the Purple sets were either PVP or similar sets. I'm not planning on doing much, if any 50+4 content with it. I will be unlikely to play much Incarnate content. It could probably use an Accuracy/ToHit boost for tougher content. I found that I was having fun playing without worrying too much about Global +Recharge. I couldn't get perma-Hasten, so I even though I kept Hasten in the build, it is something I'll only trigger occasionally. Depending on how solo play in 45+ content goes I will probably swap this out for a Global mule. Note that I'm not looking to add Force Feedback +Recharge procs in my build. YMMV. I had intended to focus on Knockdown (a favorite 'soft' control), but with the 'hard' status controls it wasn't needed. YMMV. I had not intended to take Rune of Protection, but with such poor defenses I found that I was getting hit with status effects (lvl 40+) at such a high frequency that the build needed it. The Build: I'm open to feedback. In particular: Levitate: The Decimation %Build Up is a holdover from leveling. It feels like it is helping (occasionally with ToHit), even though I know that its proc rate is very low. Mystic Flight: With such poor defenses, endurance issues, and limited power options I 3-slotted this for some (minor) global defense boosts. I'm on the fence if replacing Hasten with Maneuvers and then reshuffling defense IO slots/sets (to include some 50+5 Shield Wall in Weave) is worth the effort or not. I'd then have Maneuvers muling LotG and Reactive Defenses. I'd also move a 2nd slot (to Temp Invulnerability) to get the Endurance discount from Unbreakable Guard. I'm a fan of slotting HO Centriole (Damage/Range) in (damaging) cones; here Terrify and Energy Torrent. I don't see many folks propose this slotting (which is fine by me, as it keeps the prices low in the Auction House). The slotting doesn't do anything to increase the maximum number of targets affected, but with larger cones I get a bigger area to hit more targets... and also I don't have to be as close to enemies to hit them. I gather than Energy Torrent isn't particularly loved, but this slotting makes it better than the temp power Plasmatic Taser. I should note that the temp power doesn't suffer from the Controller damage penalty, but that it causes Knockback. Venomous Gas: I tried this power while leveling up, but the only slotting/situation where I felt this helped was when teaming with an ally who was holding melee aggro. It didn't help with personal survival. As with other toggles, the %proc chance were never observed to be worth the effort of having to stand in melee. Overpowering Presence %Energy Font: I like this little guy as a something to take aggro, and had it while leveling. I didn't see a good spot to add it, since I have committed the AoE to %damage procs. I'm not open to shifting the placement of Coercive Confusion %Contagious Confusion. Don't try to convince me to put this %proc in an AoE. As far as I am concerned: This belongs in a single-target confuse, and AoE click confuses are better with the %damage procs because applying damage yourself gets you in the pool for inf/drop rewards. The counter argument is to hope for +magnitude Confuse, but a single-target Confuse will recharge quick enough (and last long enough) that I'd rather chance a second to-hit roll (on a boss) than pray for a boss confuse. Besides, with bosses you can always lead with a single target confuse before casting the AoE.

In general, I feel like enemy mobs are far too prone to running away... it often appears that the application of a single debuff sends them scattering. I'm not asking for an across the board change. This request is simply for the limited case where a confused enemy decides to run away, for whatever reason. I'm specifically asking for this because in certain content, a confused enemy will run away and NOT return to a spawn point, or recognize that it was aggroed by a player. In particular, the Heather Townshend Dark Astoria arc (especially the second mission with newly spawned Banished Pantheon) is particularly frustrating if the enemies become confused and (eventually) run away. This is an example of a situation where it is easy to see this behavior, and it is specifically frustrating in this arc because several of the mission objectives (throughout the arc) require the defeat of specifically spawned enemies in order to complete the missions/arc.

I had a retired Invuln/EM Tank who got pulled out to test the changes. He was mostly retired even before the Tanker changes, so I'm not exactly qualified to discuss the singularity of the EM-only changes but here goes. Prior to i27, he long ago gave up on Stun after an i-27 respec I chose to not take Power Crash. I wanted to preserve as much as the original feeling of the Energy Melee set as I could: for me this meant focus on single-target with only a single AoE. The only part of the new cone that appeals to me would be the ability to quickly steal aggro (geographically) without having to necessarily target any individual enemy. My tank has very little issue with grabbing and keeping aggro, but if you are going to be good at something you might as well be very good at that thing. I hadn't realized the Damage scale boost to Whirling Hands, so as part of the respec I opted to make it a 5x %damage proc power (because of the Targets increase from the previous Tanker patch). Now that I see the 18% damage boost, I will likely try it as a 4x %damage proc power and add in a boosted +Damage piece (or adjust a slotted IO for set bonuses). I've played some incarnate content (even level, plus street sweeping) and joined some lower level teams. I want to take him deep into the Shadow Shard to see how it performs. It definitely is faster, but on fast teams my big attacks are still on the slow side. I won't think of this as a 'fixed' Energy Melee set, but as a completely different EM set. As such, it appears to be better performing than the end-of-live EM but it doesn't feel like EM prior to the live nerf.

I only have Pines' installed. A Level 50 IO is showing the damage as just hitting the Enhancement Diversification limit (because of the Acc/Dam Hami-O) and a non-boosted damage IO is showing 4-5 fewer points of damage in the 'power graph'. (I know that the old Pines doesn't have all the HC Tanker updates, but I'm not sure if the increased number of targets affects that graph for the Whirling Hand melee power) EDIT: I see that Whirling Hands also got a damage scale increase (~18%), so adding Damage (via a dedicated IO) almost certainly will be an improvement over a fifth %damage proc. I'll add this: I know it is not everyone's cuppa, but my Invuln/EM build includes Build Up 6-slotted with the Gaussian's set. I include this here only because (without Hasten) it's available every 38 seconds or so as a damage boost; with Hasten it's on an approximate 30-second availability. If I were going to replace any of the %damage pieces, it would probably be the Obliteration, as that only works down to level 27, and I do join a lot of lower-level content.

With the Issue 27 change to EM going live, I took advantage of the necessary respec to add some %damage procs to my build. I did not respec into the new cone attack Power Crash. I personally didn't want more AoE on this build, and since I had long ago surrendered Stun, this was a straightforward choice. I won't fault anyone who works it into their build, especially for %damage procs. Previous to i27, I was running Energy Transfer with (5xHecatomb with %Fire, 1x Touch of Death %Negative) and Total Focus with (4xMako's Bite w/ %Lethal, 1xPerfect Zinger %Psi, 1x Touch of Death %Negative), with the change in power tiers, I simply swapped this slotting between the two powers. The big change I made that didn't really need to wait for i27 was in Whirling Hands; that I waited until now may draw some head shakes, but anyway... Previously, I had this simply slotted as 5x Armageddon. My thinking was to get the global Accuracy and Recharge bonuses, but other power choices cover Accuracy and the extra Recharge is really only an issue for corner cases where I need to juggle Dull Pain and Hasten (The latter power is one that I really only 'need' for content where I want perma-Dull Pain). As part of the respec, I found an extra slot and I went with: HO Nucleolus (Acc/Dam) Eradication %Energy Perfect Zinger % Psi Scirocco %Lethal Obliteration %Smashing Armageddon %Fire I typically don't go proc-crazy, but with the increased area for Tanker AoE I felt like this wasn't a bad choice. I'm open to discussions/suggestions on my choices. I made the choice to not put a -Res piece in Whirling Hands... intellectually I realize that a -Resistance debuff is like getting a +Damage buff, but with "resistance resisting resistible resist debuffs" I'm not convinced that adding -Res to an AoE (on an Invuln tank) is really going to help speed things up unless I specifically pay attention (with the single-target attacks) to bosses within groups of enemies.

LRT: Quality of Life Suggestion Follows Can the LRT zone interface be modified such that the (accessible by alignment) zones a character does not have access to (because they have not collected the beacon badge) appear in a different font (such as red italic) rather than simply not appearing on the list? Not only would this help players identify which badges they have not collected for the LRT power, but it would double as a nicer mechanism than scrolling through the Exploration tab of the badge window.

I feel that this snippet should be the mission statement for the thread, as it's the only point of discussion (*1) that separates this discussion from simply being a suggestion thread asking for more things in the game.

On the topic of types of "gates" which exist, and feel natural to me in CoX: 1) Level gates: Aside from the mechanics of enemy groups, it makes sense to me that certain content cannot be directly accessed until a character meets the minimum level. The sidekick/exemplar system helps to mitigate most hard feelings around this type of gate, including 'out-leveling' content. Others may not feel as strongly as I do (in a positive sense), but the Live team just removed another one of the level gates by allowing higher level characters to go back to lower level PVP zones to get missions. 2) Alignment gates: With Null the Gull opening the gate at will, I am always surprised that folks push back on the idea that they have to change alignment to access content on the 'other side'. To me, the alignment gates seem very natural. 3) Zone gates: You have to go to certain zones for specific content, that seems completely logical to me. With issue 27, we have (sort of) re-instituted a gate relating to "Long Range Teleport" in that a character has to collect what used to be called a 'beacon badge' in order to have personal direct-access to the zone. This is completely mitigated that SG bases can still install the beacons without having to collect the beacons, unlike on live. I'm less in favor of this gate, but it is such a minor issue that it doesn't bother me.

Reading fail or quoting fail? The quote includes the words "recognize", "revealed", and "rewards"... so I'm not sure how your text applies to the post you quoted.

I've never seen that issue on Snipes, but I have seen it on Assassin's Strikes (for multiple different primaries). The weirdest part of the issue on AS I observed was with a /Bio Stalker running Offensive Adaptation: The extra damage from the Offensive Adaptation occurred, but the actual AS never took. I have been patient, and occasionally the AS damage is applied (~30 sec?) after the AS itself.

I believe that some other content (RWZ, Cape/Aura Missions) also scale to your level, so those can become level 45+ missions too.

I think 'ruin' may be overstating the situation.

The 1Binf bids were worthwhile, but 100Minf are far too low for my taste.

Grabbing some billions from the market...

I am somewhat disappointed that we've reached the point where it has become necessary to ask for changes to Death from Below because part of it is viewed as too hard, or too time consuming to run more than once. Here is my effort to be a little more helpful: Because of the nature of DfB, most characters will NOT have access to powers such as Taunt. It will be possible to draw away the zombies, but it has to be done carefully... either via aggro auras (if available) or low-damage attacks (brawl, origin powers). Generally it isn't worth trying to keep the zombie aggro, but if you have it, you can try to keep (some of) the zombies away from Meinst. Typically, if a DfB group is sincere about wanting to get that badge, a reminder to not use AoE attacks (including Sands of Mu) as well as a reminder to pacify henchmen is usually enough to earn the badge.

Time to roll up "Swee Troll" who will have to be wearing a "95% To Hit" Cap.

World of Confusion is terrible disappointment. Because it is a toggle aura, by design it will likely never be as effective as a click-PBAoE. Because it has Confuse status, it relies on the game AI to get any value, and the short period of confusion isn't really long enough to get enemies to do anything remotely useful. In practice: The enemies either spend their 2 secs running out of the aura or I've moved away from them. I'd like to see the power kept for thematic reasons, but it needs something. I feel like the least game-altering thing to do would be to simply increase its radius so that it is less like a Closet of Confusion.

This should come as no surprise, as certain costumes and emotes were originally 'gated'. I'm not in favor of gates; I'd go so far as to call most of the historically 'gated' content to be adversely affecting the Quality of Play Enjoyment, even if those restrictions could be rationalized with in game Lore, or player CPU specs. On Live certain ATs were 'gated' (at different points of the game), and veteran rewards eventually 'unlocked' the prestige powers which help to make low level grind tolerable. I can't write for anyone else but myself, but: I remember how arbitrary the gates used to be, and how much more enjoyable the game is without those gates. It doesn't matter to me if there is an intellectual movement that seeks to rationalize the re-institution of gates in some particular context which they feel avoids all the historically negative associations with gated content... it's still imposing gates, and gates sine qua non separate classes of players from certain aspects of play.

I thought I'd add this bit that is probably obvious to most players: I almost always default to Ion Judgement because it is practically a no-brainer when it comes to targeting, because of the 'jumping' between enemies and the quasi-random positioning of enemies (aggroed or not, running away or not). The only subtlety I've observed with the power is to be careful not to target a teleporting enemy with it, because they will separate themselves from any other potential targets. I do like to pick judgement powers based on 'flavor', but the utility of Ion Judgement is a cut above the rest.

While I certainly enjoy having my non-DPS AT toss Judgements every two minutes in Unai Kemen missions; it would be nice to be able to run lvl 45+ (and other 'scalable to 50') content without having access to the Incarnate powers. I'm not asking for a nerf, just the ability to select it at a challenge mode in Orobouros. Supposedly unslotting Incarnates is an option, but TBH I have trouble remembering to rescale mission difficulties, and the incarnate power change cooldowns just frustrate me as well!