VertigoIguana

The real question is why are you trying to rob us of these posts? I love em. You do you Snarky. Someday I hope to lead a PuG bad enough to be featured. ❤️

*edit accidental double post*

Should be, he dosen't have any special hold protection from what I can recall. The only hitch is surviving long enough to stack it (his attacks are auto hit, and hit hard even through ambrosia on squishies - even moreso on master runs). You'll also have the ambush waves to contemd with unless you hover up high. For what it's worth , I do the confuse trick as well with my Dom (Illu/Psi). Can stack without aggroing him at all, and as a side bonus he clears the ambushes for you too.

Rotation could maybe be Improved....I was doing AS > Smashing Blow > Concentrated Strike, alternating the mace snipe and Burst (both procced) as filler if ever needed. I tried AS > Concentrated > Smashing as well....wasn't getting times as low though. That might be better in real play though, cause you can pop BU while repositioning, but it's hard to make up the animation time vs the crit damage on a single immobile target. Just a guess though.

Sometimes it's fun to let them lapse, and see how tough these complacent so-called teammates *really* are. 😉

Just for fun - couple more tries. Largely the same build as I used before, but with different primaries. First up, Street Justice - one of my old favorites from live. I had hope for this one to be closer to energy than it was....St. J can throw out some big numbers with a 3 combo hidden CU, but I think the 25 Sec recharge is just too long to compete with Energy Transfer. Still, not *bad* by any means. Run Type: Pylon (Open Beta) Archetype: Stalker Primary Powerset: Street Justice Secondary Powerset: Bio Armor Epic: Mace Time in seconds: Best: 34 Burst: Burst - Geas + Unrelenting Hybrid: Assault - Core (toggled on) Number of Runs: 1 Version: Open Beta Temps Used: Offensive Amp, Geas Next, wanted to see how one of the least popular sets faired - Kinetic Melee. Honestly, I expected a lot worse. Kinetic has one of the fastest (if not the fastest) AS's, but that's about all it has going for it. It was definitely less consistent than either Energy or St.J, but the best times weren't *that* far off. If anything, that might just go to show how much of the DPS is being carried by the common elements of Spiderlings/Enflame/unrelenting. Run Type: Pylon (Open Beta) Archetype: Stalker Primary Powerset: Kinetic Melee Secondary Powerset: Bio Armor Epic: Mace Time in seconds: Best: 36 Burst: Burst - Geas + Unrelenting Hybrid: Assault - Core (toggled on) Number of Runs: 1 Version: Open Beta Temps Used: Offensive Amp, Geas PylonStalker KIN BIO.mbd PylonStalker stj BIO.mbd

I've tried a few builds so far.....Here's what I've found. No surprise, but Bio has been the winner on damage. As Ston's run showed as well, the spiderlings are a great source of extra DPS. I went with Enflame instead of Adrenal Booster on my build, for a little extra DPS and a slot for the annihilation proc....and dipped into presence for Unrelenting as a replacement (similar short-uptime damage boost). I tried Adrenal with Unrelenting as well, but wasn't getting times nearly as good or as consistent. A neat little quirk that I never noticed before (but may be common knowledge) is that spiderlings are inheriting the extra damage proc from Bio/Offensive. I'm guessing mechanically this is similar to how the Envenomed Blades/Illusion stuff and Hybrid Assault is working (boost is active when pets are spawned = pets inherit the extra proc). That actually makes a pretty big difference when they proc it. For approach, I tried to time it so an AS would land at about the same time the pets engaged, to maximize damage off the jump. Teleporting in worked well for that and gave me an extra second or two when everything landed. Tried a few different attack chain and Incarnate combinations, but this is the best time I got vs the big pylons. Otherwise, a lot of 29's and low 30's. Lastly, and this is a big question mark for @Koopak: Spiderlings spawn at -1 to the player.....vs the player. This gives them a boost vs the Big (unleveled) pylon, since they will fight it as an even con. There are a series of leveled dummy's on the other side of the base, but with that - the level 50 one has far less max HP than the unleveled one (which is scaled to level 54 HP), and the leveled 54 one hurts player DPS by a big chunk due to purple patch. Are we OK using only the big unleveled one as the official baseline? Otherwise.....the level 50 dummy will give faster times (less HP = *much* faster kill...see second video @ 25 seconds. There's a 23 second in the chat log also same build/no one around buffing, but I wasn't recording at the time). Run Type: Pylon (Open Beta) Archetype: Stalker Primary Powerset: Energy Melee Secondary Powerset: Bio Armor Epic: Mace Time in seconds: Best: 28 Burst: Burst - Geas + Unrelenting Hybrid: Assault - Core (toggled on) Number of Runs: 1 Version: Open Beta Temps Used: Offensive Amp, Geas Same build -25 Seconds https://youtu.be/8KXBdFyEVsM PylonStalker EN BIO.mbd

Well...it is a stalker bounty, I'm sure we'll all be at least a little sneaky.

Ok, take two: Updated build - Double checked for no interference - Build is now live Turns out, the answer is always more procs. Still not finding caltrops worth it, that's another second I'd rather be kicking. Realistic for actual gameplay? Ha, no. Even fighting pylons half the time a pet or two will wander off and try to solo the one behind it, or the tarantula will not approach (wasting enflame). But every once in the while, when the stars and pylon regen ticks align, this happens: Run Type: Pylon (Open Beta) Archetype: Dominator Primary Powerset: Illusion Control Secondary Powerset: Martial Assault Epic: Mace Time in seconds: Best: 28 Seconds Burst: Burst Hybrid: Assault - Radial (toggled on) Number of Runs: 1 Version: I27, p7 27.7.5916 Video Link: N/A Temps Used: Offensive Amp, Dagger, and Geas (No insps or Lores) Pylon Dominator (Illusion Control - Martial Assault)2.mbd

Ahh, good eye. I didn't notice that before. @Koopak Sorry about that, can you please update the time? I'm redoing the build, and I'll try to catch another sub-30 run on it later this weekend. For now, here's a clean 30sec from the same day.

Not that I know of, but it could be fun if you want to try it out. 🙂

The plus side is that you don't have to worry about the pets getting wiped out by a stray AoE....and with illusion (or Dark or Mind) you can almost always just perma-confuse them anyway.

Yeah, it's interesting. I hadn't thought about it much until recently either. But it seems to work exactly like Hybrid Assault Radial. If you spawn the pets with it active, they get it. If it expires ad you reuse it any pets will also activate it again (as long as they were summoned when it was originally active). I have to agree though other sets would be better in normal gameplay, any of the builds I'm posting here would not be (unless your normal gameplay is limited to knocking down unarmed training dummies). Big fan of energy myself, but Arsenal Assault also looks interesting for my next *real* dom. There's another quirk I wanted to try out.....which is Dark Control's Haunt. I'm really only using illusion for the pets (3 Phantom Army, Phantasm, and Phantom Decoy), but Dark can *also* have 5 pets. Haunt functions similarly to Gang war, since it's a targeted summon. So Haunt > burnout > Haunt means 4 Ghosties plus the Umbral Beast. The other diffrence , is all of darks pets are targetable normally so: 1) Tactics effects them, which give the build up proc in it more targets to proc off of and 2) They can be teleported. I suspect I'm losing a second or two actually getting my pets to the pylon, so I wanted to try summoning everyone then just team teleporting in. Haunt needs a target, but I used a MDC dummy for that (they wont aggro on it, but it works to summon them all). Put the best result I got below. Not a bad time at all, but Illusion is still winning out from pure damage. The haunts are good, but PA just does better DPS. Definitely not a build I'd take into regular content at all, but a fun experiment. Run Type: Pylon (Open Beta) Archetype: Dominator Primary Powerset: Dark Control Secondary Powerset: Martial Assault Epic: Mace Time in seconds: Best: 35 Seconds Burst: Burst - due to Geas Hybrid: Assault - Core (toggled on) Number of Runs: 1 Version: Open Beta 27.7.5886.1 (RC3.5) Video Link: N/A Temps Used: Offensive Amp, Dagger, and Geas (No insps or Lores) Dominator (Darkness Control - Martial Assault).mbd

Yeah, thorns was really surprising to me. I never really looked at it much before now. I'm not super sold on Caltrops though. It doesn't proc that reliably, and it takes 45 seconds to do it's full damage (Hopefully the pylon should be long dead by then). I tried swapping out Impale for Thorny Barrage, but wasn't getting times as fast (even though on paper it's better DPA). I think most of the heavy lifting in my build is still coming from Skewer, and faster recharge (from Geas + Offensive booster) and prioritizing shorter filler activations (Build up/Impale) gives me more pokes per second. Tried to record some videos, wasn't able to capture a 32 second video on Thorn yet, but here's a 33. Chain is the same, 32 is just lucky timing I think. I think Frosticus's build could hit it (or better) pretty easily if Geas and booster were used like I did. ----- All that said, I did try Radiation Assault again, but wasn't getting anything better than Thorn so I switched gears over to Illusion/Martial/Mace, and boy did that pay off. The build is still very similar to my others...the main difference from the Thorn build is that I squeezed in a kismet and Tactics to boost up the snipe a little. The theory I had with martial was that since envenomed blades carries over to pets...and one thing Illusion has is a lot of pets....that might be enough to push me under the 30 second mark. Took a bit of playing around with the timing to make sure envenomed blades was staying up on the most pets possible until the end of the fight, but I think I have it mostly dialed in now. Had a bunch of low 30's, and then I caught this one - 29 Seconds. Please forgive the jutter on the video....first time trying to record, not sure what happened there. I tried weaving in caltrops as well (proc'd out), but wasn't getting times as good with it. Run Type: Pylon (Open Beta) Archetype: Dominator Primary Powerset: Illusion Secondary Powerset: Martial Assault Epic: Mace Time in seconds: Best: 29 Seconds Burst: Burst - due to Geas Hybrid: Assault - Radial* (toggled on) Number of Runs: 1 Version: Open Beta 27.7.5886.1 (RC3.5) Video Link: N/A Temps Used: Offensive Amp, Dagger, and Geas (No insps or Lores) Build attached: Pylon Dominator (Illusion Control - Martial Assault).mbd

Run Type: Pylon (Open Beta) Archetype: Dominator Primary Powerset: Illusion Secondary Powerset: Thorny Assault Epic: Mace Time in seconds: Best: 32 Seconds Burst: Burst - due to Geas Hybrid: Assault - Core (toggled on) Number of Runs: 20ish (6 in screenshot below) Version: Open Beta 27.7.5877.1 (RC3) Video Link: N/A Temps Used: Offensive amplifier, and Geas (No insps or Lores) Notes: Swapped to Thorns, but otherwise very similar build as before. With Thorns I can fit in both -res procs without Cross Punch, and get Enflame back in the mix. I also dropped the daggers out of rotation. With a fight this short, it seems like just going for more damage is more effective in keeping the times low here. All 6 of these runs *felt* similarly tight, I think it's the timing of the pylons regen ticks that gave me the big range (32s to 40s in the screenshot below). Tried a few without Geas and the Amp as well, and got some similar times, though less consistently good so I left them in in the end. Ran 20 or so total, with lot of mid/low 30s results. The best being a couple at 32s (though they were rare) Screenshot of the best string of runs below. Had to stop when someone came by with Player Buff AOE running, but I don't think I can squeeze any more out of this one. I suspect that I can juice a bit more out of my Rad Assault build with what I learned from this.....especially if I give up any semblance of being usable in actual content. So that'll be next. Build: Pylon Dominator (Illusion Control - Thorny Assault).mbd