electric_emu

As someone who would absolutely love to combine certain sets for the sake of concept I can't otherwise make, this pretty much sums up my thoughts on it. I'd like a freeform/"Paragon" style AT if had some guardrails or at least an attempt at balancing it against regular ATs.

SR's taunt aura is in Evasion (AoE Def toggle), no? I am fairly certain every single Brute/Tanker armor powerset has a taunt aura.

Outisde of specific secondary powersets, Rune of Protection is your best bet imo. It has a fixed recharge (180s), but decent uptime and can be used reactively (while mezzed). It helps significantly and is otherwise useful for keeping yourself alive when you screw up. Plus it's a great slot mule power.

While Granite Armor makes you as tough as tough can get (at the cost of some offense), you're still insanely sturdy with the 'just' your other powers. You get a little bit of everything - defense, resistance, max HP, regen, even confuse protection. You're near-unkillable on top of getting an extra damage proc from Brimstone. I only took Granite on my Ice/Stone Brute as a slot mule lol

I think this is a resolution/scaling issue. I just got a new monitor (using the same resolution as you, 3840x2160) and suddenly have this problem as well.

I don’t think I have ever made it more than 15 minutes with General Chat visible to me. To me it serves no purpose other than making me angry at people I don’t even know. Do yourself a favor and hide it. The game will feel MUCH more civil and welcoming.

Energy Aura doesn't need much help from IO set defense bonuses, so you can focus on almost entirely on recharge. Just make sure your toggles have their defense values fully enhanced (3-4 LoTG will do, but you can also do things like 1 LoTG unique + 5 Red Fortune if you have slots to spare). I like psi resist IOs wherever I can put them (Dampening Field, Energy Protection, Tough) since it is Energy Aura's only real weakness.

A pop up indicating /cleartray exists would be sufficient. I'm not sure it would be possible to attempt to replicate your pre-respec hotbars or place powers intelligently.

I'll take more time to go over and test the specific changes but I greatly move toward consistency across epics. And I especially appreciate the proliferation of themes to archetypes that "should" have them (Earth Mastery for Scrappers/Stalkers and Blasters next, please!) At first glance I think Spirit Drain is... fair.

I will echo Fiery Melee. Very strong now and feels more like a proper analogue to Fire Blast, at least on Tankers.

Powersets, I need to know the powersets! Is that a Dominator / Controller with a rifle? I welcome Assault Rifle Assault lol

Pick what calls to you. There is truly no wrong choice and you can always reroll if you find something else strikes your interest (it's what most of us stick around to do lol). With that disclaimer out of the way, here is my two cents: For primaries, I'd recommend against Bio Armor, Ice Armor, Fiery Aura, and Dark Armor. They're all fantastic, but not necessarily noob friendly. Bio is very active and really appreciates a strong build. Ice has glaring and somewhat common protection holes (fire and psi). Fiery Aura is the squishiest Tanker primary. Dark Armor offers comprehensive protection (except knockback, though easily fixed) but is very hard on your endurance (this can be particularly unfun). Any other primary will keep you alive without much fuss. For secondaries you have a lot of choices for AoE thanks to Tankers' increased range and target caps. Fiery Melee is a standout all-rounder capable of awesome AoE and great single target pretty much out of the box. Ice Melee is another contender with deceptively good single target damage as well (do not mistake Freezing Touch for mere crowd control!), but really only shows its true AoE potential with its last power (Frozen Aura). Super Strength is similar, but ALL of its AoE potential locked behind its very satisfyingT9 (Foot Stomp) so it may feel slow to get off the ground. Electrical Melee has fantastic AoE but anemic single target damage.

For what it's worth, this is an extremely fun combination.

Congratulations! With how quiet things have been this is nice to hear. Can you share any other details on what HC's commitments under the licensing agreement are?

Yeah, it would. Just look at the numbers. Example: A Defender's (unslotted) Deflection Shield gives 15% defense to smashing, lethal, AND melee. Plus huge Toxic resistance. The buff lasts for 4 minutes for a cost of about 8 endurance (rounding up). This is just as good if not better than any single basic Tanker toggle for a fraction of a fraction of the endurance cost with the only downside being you need to refresh it every 4 minutes. And that's an example with an ally buff that's not even particularly amazing. Imagine Speed Boost, Painbringer, Adrenaline Boost, or Temporal Selection.

I don't mind Energy Cloak being partial stealth, but I would appreciate a no transparency and/or reduced transparency option in power customization. I love Energy Aura but hate feeling compelled (Energy Cloak is an excellent power!) to be completely see through when not in combat. I also agree that it's a bit strange when compared to the buffed Stealth, which mechanically is "full" invisibility but visually not. Maybe give that a transparency slider/option too.

Its perception is pretty low, so you do have to get fairly close to have it notice enemies. Otherwise it just sticks to you. IIRC in beta SC's perception was initially set to inherit player values, which caused much unintentional wandering.

It wouldn't surprise me if ST + Cat 5 is still best. The SC procs (and added Gust damage) aren't terribly strong. I'll be interested to see the results though 🙂

Interesting. What did your recharge on SC look like? When recast it replaces the existing one, so you would only really need to cast it twice assuming you can finish in under two minutes (once at the beginning and once at the end of its one minute duration). If you were recasting every 15-20 seconds I can definitely see it eating into DPS in a big way. Also, was Storm Cell itself slotted for damage? Enhancing Storm Cell enhances the procs as I understand it.

Is it not worth maintaining Storm Cell for Storm Blast?

The set encourages aggressive use of its own powers to get Storm Cell procs. Sentinels secondaries are much more passive than the others, allowing them to focus on making the most of SC's procs. Additionally, the SC procs, they way Cat 5 works, and the chain AoE make the lower Sentinel target caps much less noticeable than on other blast sets.

From noodling with it on beta, I like it best on Sentinels. Was thinking Storm/Fire or Storm/Bio. Not sure yet and won't be able to play until later (why did they have to release it on such a busy day lol).

Really happy to see the reduced recharge on Storm Cell. Feels much better right out of the gate and gives you some flexibility with enhancing it at low levels rather than being compelled to slot recharge reduction just to maintain it. Also, I'm a bit late but the improved fx on Storm Cell are very nice.

Interesting. So perma out of the box is a non-starter? I certainly don't want the duration cut, that just becomes more busy work. As Captain Fabulous pointed out, it's very easy to perma. So it just seems... strange, I guess, that it is balanced by downtime that is easy to overcome. It doesn't take much global recharge, and any IO set it would want has enough recharge enhancements to do the job on its own. So it feels like it's just punishing lower level characters by having them choose between the upkeep of a recharge SO or having downtime on the set's primary mechanic. As a balance decision, it's more of an annoyance than anything else because it does nothing to actually limit the set's potential. Not sure I can think of a comparable example in another powerset. Anyway, if perma out of the box is not an option than I would prefer they leave it as is. It does its job well, and it's a non-issue by the midgame anyway.

I did not say I wanted it to be stationary, I actually like that it moves. However, sometimes it moves where it's not wanted (following a runner for example) so there is value in being able to reposition it from time to time. Lowering its base recharge allows for more flexibility in doing that at all levels. Sure, you can throw a recharge SO in the default slot. But 1) that doesn't even make it perma (even if 8s downtime is fairly trivial, it is downtime) and 2) you have to commit to maintaining the recharge SO as you level up to give the power a functional cooldown (at least until level 22 or so). Given the set relies so heavily on Storm Cell, I do not think enhancing its recharge should be a requirement. Especially when you'd probably rather slot for damage, endurance reduction, or even KB to KD. I just think it's better to let recharge enhancements (or global recharge) go to allowing greater flexibility in positioning instead of being necessary to maintain the set's defining gimmick.