normalperson

I'm still working on learning how to post builds, but right I have a Stone/Flame blaster that just reached level 35. Her biggest problem is she draws crazy amounts of aggro. Every time I fire of flaming sword circle, the nearby enemies basically flatten her. To help with this, I took Concealment and Ethereal Shift. That's how bad my dying problem is. So the two ancillaries I'm considering as a fix to this are Fire or Force. If it's fire, I'll take Bonfire, then Fire Shield, Rise of the Phoenix, and then optionally maybe Melt Armor. If it's force, I'll take personal Force Field, then Force Bomb, then Force of Nature, and optionally temp invulnerability. Pros that I can see for Force Ancillary are : - With Personal FF I can tank nearly anything for as long as I need, but.... I have to activate it in time, and I'll want to attack eventually. - Force Bomb gives me another AOE KB attack, with the nice added damage reduction. (Upthrust also achieves this, as does Meteor) - Force of nature could put my resistances to 50% with good enhancements, which would buy me more time to act before I die. Pros that I can see for Fire Ancillary are: - Bonfire is persistent knockback over time, right? So I might get a bunch of attacks off maybe? - Rise of the Phoenix will save me from pretty much anything, even if I don't remember to click in time. Can always go to the START vendor and buy "self destruct" if I want to avoid debt. - Getting fire shield doesn't really affect my decision much, other than that I'd like to put a proc or two on it. Are there any benefits of one set over the other than I am missing? Right now I lean toward taking Fire Ancillary, but when doing Rikti Raids personal FF can be really handy sometimes, so I'm still open to Force Ancillary.

The pain in early levels is terrible, but if I've had some fun with Gravity/Arsenal, You can open up with Wormhole,, then Crushing Field, and now their gathered tightly together for Ignite. Sometimes, if I'm feeling patient, I'll lay a bunch of trip mines out at the location before I start. Wormhole makes it so all the mines hit all the mobs. Sometimes the minion mobs don't survive through the opening attack that way.

That immobilize advice turned out amazing! I went with crushing field, and used that "immobilize around a corner" trick, which enabled me to punch through to L26 without crying and giving up. Prior to that moment, It had been several levels of pure pain (and a few badges relating to taking damage). Now later on, I'm using Wormhole as my opener, and Crushing Field enables me to keep them gathered tightly together so I can light them up with ignite.

So now my toon is up to level 42. I've had a chance to try Trip + Wormhole Wormhole has the advantage that enemies don't notice the attack, and you can actually be standing around a corner out of view when you activate it. So sometimes on difficult spawns I set 5 mines in one location, then throw the spawn at them as my first move. Each enemy gets hit by each mine, which sometimes wipes out the minions in one shot. The stun gives me some time to try and kill them before deciding if I'm going to need to give up and run away, or finish them. Haven't had a chance to try flame thrower yet. I'm hoping that since they're all gathered in one place, that will mass burn them. I'll post a build once I figure out how to do it.

double post, sry

I grabbed trip on mine, and I'll admit I'm not absolutely sure it is practical. On teams it has the advantage that I don't have to have a target lined up. Just set it and it will hit something eventually. I don't think it is interruptible because I haven't ever been interrupted. But I still don't use it much on teams. In solo, if I'm facing a difficult boss or spawn, and feeling patient, I can set 5 mines in one place, and then throw the whole at them (having high recharge helps that be less tedious) . Wormhole doesn't trigger aggro if there are no procs set to it, so if it is my first attack, then any enemies that get missed, also don't notice me. You can actually be standing around a corner when you use it once you've chosen your target, and the port location. The best part is that I know for sure every mine will hit every enemy.

Does Psionic Nexus, from the Psionic Mastery Ancillary, actually heal you? https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=pets_psionic_nexus It's a long wait to get there, but having a pet makes me feel like I'm getting more benefit from taking "Shield Other", if I end up playing solo sometimes. Also I noticed that Unrelenting from the Presence pool, also gives you +Rech and +Damage, so maybe it's not so bad for your DPS to go that way.

It's hard for me to live without a heal, but /Shield is still pretty fun, so I knew when I began I would need to take a pool to get a heal power. So I'm choosing between two options. 1 - Medicine Pool. Plan is that later on I will take Ghost Widow Patron and get Shadow Meld which will give me temporary very high defense, to save me from getting interrupted. 2 - Presence Pool. If I go this route then instead of Ghost Widow, I'll take the Ice Ancillary because the Jack Frost has high defense, and I want to stack that with Grant Cover and see how that plays out. Right now I am not considering Willpower Pool because I am already using that on a Shield/Fire tank and I want to have a variety of builds. Otherwise I am pretty sure that would be the best choice. A distant third choice is not to take any pool heals at all, but later on go with Mako as my patron to get Hibernate. But it is a pretty distant third.

I'm at a three way crossroads again. At L18 I can take A- Crushing field. Group immobilize that inflicts 7.5 smashing (at level 18) 8 Second Rech B - Gravity Distortion Field Group hold that inflicts 0 points damage of any kind and makes foes immune to knock 4 Min Rech C - Wall of Force Cone AOE with 33% chance of .67 knock, inflicts 16 points smash/psionic 10 Second Rech I am leaning toward Crushing Field

Do you find that Gravity Distortion Field gets in the way of your KB/KD effects? I skipped it because I didn't want to make enemies immune to my Lift and Propel. So now at L17 I'm finding it pretty hard to keep anyone locked down, although when facing an individual boss I've got them on the ground for the whole fight. Lift being Maginitude 7.99 unmodified, and Propel being 2.66 even very tough bosses fall down. But if there is a group........... Edit: I just realized Crushing field doesn't make them immune to KB. , And gravitiy Distortion is a hold anyway........... now nevermind this is kind of a dumb question. I thought I would make them immune to KB if I took the group immobilize, and now I've been suffering 5 or more levels of pain trying to lock down groups..............

JJDraken - That is an interesting build. I'm curious : how well is Evasive Maneuvers working out for you? I tried taking it on a Mastermind character, but I found that needing to wait through 10 seconds of inaction before that defense effect kicks in, I was already dead before it started protecting me. So I turned it off to save End, and ended up not really using it. I'm probably going to respec it out soon. Thanks for talking me out of it! I had planned the build before even trying a Dom, with medicine in mind, but then when I got to level 10 and took the Aid Other power, in preparation, I had an odd feeling of impending doom, and thought maybe I should ask some other people who had actually run Doms. What you are saying confirms that dread was real. I used my free level 10 respec to get rid of Aid Other. I can't seem to get Mids to give me an image, perhaps because I have only planned the build up to level 14 so far. But here is the data chunk. My pools are Concealment, Flight, and Teleportation, and now Force of Will. I'm not going to fight it anymore!!!!! |MBD;7927;603;804;BASE64;| |G/YeQCwK7FgGTowOBtXQKHo7qLWV+mZk5ATVlJ0v7ZtQbkt92aahbKjwoCB/JktXX+u| |wgHQ15yTlz7yLM8OXrjtYIUtCmjIm/v+/V7MEAh6Dh5q8lbGG7nmTjbMTKKdAPRWYgN| |h9gy21oJ+6lGfFHxResSyj/2FWRE2KngGPjADuvNZvJopJBMT3AN2XlyuAGVIMwITTA| |M4Bq1FXnP3yMwfDCEmdHxvIdgCGfG1uJdvLs+bOlC4BiMURJmj1D60AK0PbhJCpYBD2| |FczaiW4+6M/C8WiIy9jBWnDZlbPx1CluyOSUTbSU+EvxtWYuWtc4gLZ85CoymZJTuWM| |nOZ77VMoWE3PZMgsuqvnU5Et9tGIO2XMB39r8NFV9OM4I83pnoDTEf40i4b5JghqL4W| |gT20A3GBILg3Di7y8htPhGXvqYKi3imHI/A7ohu5m0OtRr2aKx8jr2CWTsw0IQaghAS| |GtD5kY4CuNsZMHNndk6I3jNC/9tjfzQkS/d9xQjJ1u2SiiCCyqQ4pPaudrFCQoohbDl| |02GaHvTdIhS71g0s4mQq+dQRr6UG0qb4UlB7xDMiP3WnaG3ty5zmi4XYwJML08DaJx2| |Id4R4c2Fxwk2ehQ2IObpq85YJD0SYe37yugxOnrva5GkXSVpzbAupiVnR1xcBxEUxG4| |Ud5owQ5DniC31S83E8TBI7twwqhcr+6h2qRZEWNyV+9XTDfFFw9UT+nAosumwunBEr+| |qqKxJ/K8nDeByr+yD93tjjK/BU+Xk+pYtp5KaMY1UPaV09rHmQeK/7pc6cxb1saU18D|

I have actually reached the point where I have to make my choice. Level 12 and I'm fresh out of powers to choose that don't affect healing. -If I go Medicine, I'm going to go ahead and skip Power Up or wait until much later. Instead I'll go Stealth-Grant Invis - Phase Shift, so I can call "time out" and heal myself. Downside? Interruptible without Phasing (or later on using Personal Force Field with Scorpion Patron) Upside? Faster Recharge, and I can aid teammates if I'm on a team with Aid Other. - If I go Unleash Potential, I'll take Project Will and Weaken Resolve (and definitely yes take Power Up) I don't need the travel power because I'm already flying. Gives me lots of single target attacks at 80 foot range, which lets me pick off a few minions before the bosses get close and I have to engage them. Downside? Takes 10 minutes to recharge, which I can only probably get down to like 4 or 5 minutes at the lowest. Phase Shift can fire every 2 minutes. Upside? I can keep right on fighting. - Unrelenting is still on the table. Doesn't add defense but it's still a decent heal, and gives +Rech and +Damage. Downside? Takes 10 minutes to recharge. Upside? Both the powers I have to pick to get it are useful. Pacify is near guaranteed non aggression from the boss, and Intimidate is 15 seconds of additional mezz. Next time I log on I have to pick........................

Looking at it in terms of recharging to permahold, I guess having Lift, Propel, and then Project Will - all three are powers you can slot the +Recharge KB proc onto. But this also raises the question of whether to try taking the Experimentation power set? The description for Adrenal Booster says that you get a 27.6% boost to secondary effects, which lasts 60 seconds. Experimental injection grants +regen. The Singularity pet can't be healed. Can it be Regen boosted?

No. You are right. I'd rather go Stealth instead of SS. My big reservation about going with "Unleash Potential" is that I've already got a full set of ranged single target ranged powers. Burst, Lift, and Propel pretty much keep me not needing to wait for powers to recharge in battle. To get Unleash, I'll need to take either one or two additional single target ranged powers. But if I get Recharge slowed, maybe then I'll be glad to have one or two more attacks while I wait. Trouble with going First Aid instead, is then my character is really a serious glass cannon. I'll eventually get personal force field when I choose my patron, and that will let me call "time out" and Aid Self up to full health sometimes. But the rest of the time my outlook is pretty bleak. There is no perfect answer. That's why this character is so fun. I can plot for days what I'll do next time I level.

I'm looking at having Jump (Mighty Leap) and Fly. Stealth really helps with quick missions, and Super Speed is a stealth. That gets me to three. Might as well add teleport for the sake of it. Maybe combat teleport and slot +toHit IO's to it.