Redlynne

Give Black Hole the Dimension Shift (Gravity) treatment ... and it ought to be good.

Depends on the endgame you want to play, I suppose. Solo ... there are gaps (obviously) in the Defenses. Team ... it is likely that the gaps in Defenses will be filled by someone else on the team, so long as you cooperate with them in terms of positioning. League ... it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that in a League context (that doesn't split the teams up) that you will have any gaps in your Defenses. So it really depends on context for what it meant by "endgame" here.

Mercenaries/Electrical Affinity ...? Mercenaries/Nature Affinity ...? However, if you're limiting yourself to Empathy/Trick Arrow/Force Field/Sonic, I would honestly go with Empathy ... although that then begs the question of whether or not you've got Pain Domination available as a secondary. Having Suppress Pain available as a +Regeneration TOGGLE to keep your Mercenaries healed up around you would seem to be a better option than relying on Regeneration Aura in Empathy for the same service. Second best choice would be Sonic because the -Resistance debuff powers in Sonic will help you Mercenaries overcome their ... limitations ... as damage dealers (as well as any teammates you happen to fall in with). Of course, if you do go with Sonic you will want to pick up the Medicine pool for Aid Other, Aid Self and Field Medic ... because relying on the Mercenaries Medic for all your healing will be ... inadequate ... to the task. The Mercenaries Medic is certainly better than nothing, but not by much.

That is a very compelling option ...

There's a caveat to using procs instead of damage enhancement on Archetypes that have Critical Hits happening ... the damage procs do not get doubled by Critical Hits, while damage enhancement will get doubled by critical hits. Just one other factor to consider.

Necro/Traps has Detonator ... 💣

Almost as if the design intent was to balance around having 1 Ghost active at all times ...

Electric Control/Nature Affinity Controller

So in case it wasn't obvious enough already ... although, with the way that posts get reshuffled when replied to, this could be non-obvious in about 6+ months or so ... I took what I learned from this post and completed two "ultimate recharge" builds for Peacebringer and Warshade. They can be found here: [v4.0.0] Tri-form Peacebringer Light Speed [v4.0.0] Tri-form Warshade Symbiosis A major difference between the two builds is that the Peacebringer is able to reach perma Light Form without Hasten and without Force Feedback procs(!). By contrast, the Warshade is able to reach perma Eclipse without Hasten and as few as 4 Force Feedback procs within the 90 second recharge time of Eclipse.

At the risk of repeating myself (from previous posts months old now) ... I do it for multiple reasons. First and foremost is that I want to have something that I can quickly and easily refer to (via Alt+Tab) when leveling up and checking what needs to be slotted when (and where) and so on. I've played too long NOT to have everything pre-planned for where I want to go with my builds. The second reason is to "share" what I find so that others can learn from my experiences and incorporate that knowledge and information into their own builds to satisfy their own preferences. It's that whole "teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for life" kind of thing. It's not enough to say "do this" ... you also need to show and demonstrate (and often times explain!) WHY doing that is a good idea, and whether it is something that is uniquely good in that specific context or if it is simply such a good idea that everyone ought to be copying it for their own builds. The third reason is because I Don't Know Everything™ ... and sometimes somebody on these forums will notice something, such as an oversight or a missed opportunity, that can make a posted build EVEN BETTER. So peer review is another important aspect of posting my builds the way that I do ... but that peer review often requires a thorough enough understanding of not only the build itself, but also why it is structured the way that it is and the design "goals" that went into making the choices you see in it. In other words, we need to be on the same page for that peer review to be useful to me and/or anyone else. And finally, if my builds inspire others to go out and experiment with the build planner and make their own discoveries because of something I've posted ... that's the REAL reward for me. Knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied. 😎

Dual Pistols/Martial is what you're looking for.

Good job making the font size small enough to require effort/work to read ...

So ... funny story. I just finished a 15-19 mission for Shadowstar (here's the link to it) ... and what do I find is the main mob to defeat inside the mission? Heil HYDRA! The Council AND the 5th Column are BOTH Totally Nazis (one just wants it more than the other). The only difference between them is the ... DEPTHS ... of their ... PURITY ...

So ... update. I'd spent the past week converting and selling off Merits for INF so as to afford the necessary slotting that would be needed upon completing a respec into the build. Right now my Warshade is Level 15 and I'm playing "Do All The Things™" mode before advancing on up the Level food chain, rather than powerleveling to 50 in the shortest time possible. A lot of my reason for doing that is that there was so much content added to the lower levels zones, most of which I NEVER got to see pre-shutdown, that I'm simply enjoying myself taking the leisurely pace to level up and see everything that is there to be seen. It also means that I'm getting to play the game as it was meant to be played (originally) in that I'm sticking to level appropriate content for my build level, rather than zooming up to 50 and then doing it all as an Exemplar loaded with slots and set bonuses. Think of it as a hat tip towards playing the game with a little extra difficulty. However, this has given me the opportunity to test out some of the theorycrafting that went into this build (not the Force Feedback stuff, that will happen later) ... more specifically, Hover Immobilize Orbiting Death! Because one of the things I wanted to find out was whether, even at as low as Level 10 (and I'm Level 15 right now, so close enough for this) being able to slot up Ebon Eye and Gravimetric Snare backed by Orbiting Death and using Hover would be a worthwhile thing to do, relative to using Nova form instead. And the answer is ... it's kind of close ... in terms of utility. Human form is still "inferior" to Nova form at this point, but that's mainly due to the fact that Nova form adds +45% damage buffing to all attacks, so of course Nova form is going to deal more damage faster ... but Nova form doesn't have access to an Immobilize like Gravimetric Snare, which is really good against Runners (go figure). But there's a curious interaction going on between Hover and Orbiting Death. Because Orbiting Death has a 20ft radius, it's a perfectly valid tactic to Hover at like 10ft or so off the ground/floor where NPCs "can't reach" so as to Hover blast them from above with Ebon Eye and Gravimetric Snare while letting Orbiting Death "chew" on them with its DoT while Orbiting Death ALSO "chews" on the with its DoT ... and because Gravimetric Snare is an Immobilize it "locks" $Targets into place so they can't get away while the DoT(s) burn them down. It has a VERY different feel to it than Hover blasting using Nova form and I'm already starting to see a number of uses for the combination, particularly in teamed contexts where engaging in Human form rather than Nova form might be a superior option depending on what a team needs from you at any given moment (and what the ceiling height is). Simply being able to make use of Orbiting Death without needing to worry about incoming melee attack damage quantities has worked wonders for my survival potential while soloing. And that's not even including being able to use Sunless Mire while Hovering (just out of their reach) above a group of $Targets so as to damage buff Ebon Eye, Gravimetric Snare and Orbiting Death ... once I've got them all conveniently clustered up underneath where I'm Hovering ... so as to burn them all down that much faster. Being able to use Sunless Mire like this then helps the entire combination come close to the kind of damage production I'd be getting out of Nova form (without Sunless Mire) while also making it possible to switch to Nova form after use of Sunless Mire for even more powerful blasting. In other words, the use of Hover in the build is already paying dividends in terms of engagement tactics that I would have previously considered far too risky to engage in or even contemplate. On top of all of that, being able to Hover and Shadow Cloak for scouting has been fantastic. Making sure there are no Quantum Gunners or Galaxy types mixed into a spawn group before engaging has been very valuable scouting experience, as has being able to Shadow Step past a choke point so as to attack them from a more favorable vantage point. However, if there is a Quantum Gunner or Galaxy type mixed into a spawn group, I can select them, retreat to a "safe(r) location" to engage them one on one (without the rest of their spawn group) and then use Starless Step to teleport foe them to my location and take them down. Hover AGAIN makes this easier since I can be Hovering above the floor, use Starless Step to teleport foe my $Target at the ceiling (where they will fall from upon arrival), cue up use of the Nemesis Staff once I visually confirm that the Starless Step teleport is successful, and have Orbiting Death "chewing" on them within 2 seconds of their arrival. If the Nemesis Staff hits it will do a really nice high Knockback effect on them which will take them some time to recover from, during which I can either use Ebon Eye+Gravimetric Snare+Orbiting Death in Human form to burn them down ... or switch to Nova form and just blast them into defeat. Usually by the time I've got the Quantum Gunner/Galaxy defeated, one or more members of the spawn group will arrive and I'll get to blast them into defeat too, before resuming my advancing across the map. So the real treat here is that switching to this new build has opened up a whole extra set of options and possibilities for how to engage (and when and where and why) that has made use of Human form at least somewhat competitive with use of Nova form at Level 15. That in turn means that my build is less of a One Trick Pony Nova like it was before, and I have more ways to deal with situations than I did before. Even something as simple as corner pulling gets a LOT more interesting when you can Immobilize the "heavier" $Target in a spawn group so as to make the smaller fry bumrush your position (due to blocked Line of Sight) and then dispose of them without needing to deal with the "heavy" at the same time. Being able to "chop up" spawn groups like that so as to take them on sequentially, rather than only in parallel, has a goodly bit of tactical value at times, particularly when soloing. All of that means that so far I am VERY pleased with how well this new build plays, even at this early stage of the game with barely any powers picked and most of my slots being filled with common 15 IOs. Definitely working out well so far! Edit: Aaaand ... I just got a demonstration of why this ability to flip flop between Nova blasting and Human form blasting might be important to be able to do. So I just ran this 15-19 Mission for Shadowstar (that I mentioned doing over HERE) in which the main mobs to defeat on an indoor tech lab map were ... Hydra. The nasty thing about Hydra mobs are that all of them (except the AV?) have a Spit attack that does -Fly, which then obviously grounds you so you can't get away from their heavy hitting melee attacks. This means that against Hydra, you're going to get grounded unless you get very very lucky ... so staying airborne is NOT a (too terribly) successful way to kite them and play "keep away" from their ability to bumrush towards you and melee you for big damage hits. Except ... They don't have any particular protection against Immobilize(!) ... so I was able to leverage use of Gravimetric Snare so as to avoid getting caught in melee range. And funnily enough, there was a single Lieutenant Hydra that I was able to isolate before attacking, and what I decided to do was to toggle on Shadow Cloak and Orbiting Death in Human form ... inch up behind him until Orbiting Death "pinged" him, and then unload into him with Gravimetric Snare and Ebon Eye. It worked like a charm! By keeping the Lieutenant Immobilized but still within Orbiting Death radius I was able to attack him multiple times per ranged attack he could use against me, and by preventing him from entering melee range (and not needing to worry about being grounded) I could practically dispatch him with ease. Now the -Fly debuff is pretty darn rare to come across (although Arachnos has it too in their Web Grenades for Soldiers), but knowing that I can use Gravimetric Snare to "jiujitsu" that kind of situation into being an advantage for my Warshade just fills me with even more confidence that I'm on the right track in being able to adapt to these kinds of edge cases because I've got a build with SO MANY OPTIONS for how to engage. Anyway, just wanted to share that bit of interesting tidbit.

So ... burned off all my Monitor Duty time this morning before going in for the respec (currently level locked at 14, but that will be unlocked once I finish the arc on this last Contact in the 10-14 range), got everything slotted up (mostly common 15 IOs, but did have the 5-slot Kheldian's Grace to slot into Bright Nova Blast) and took it out for a spin in a mission fighting ... you guessed it ... wannabe Nazis Council. Even at this low Level, I could "feel" the difference that shifting to this new build has wrought, and look forward to getting out of the Level 14 doldrums and heading towards Level 19 to complete the next block of content before advancing again. Overall, I'm quite pleased with how the build is playing, particularly with the way that I can use Stealth (now) to enable better scouting and positioning to alpha strike from. In other words, so far so good better than what I was using before (which I hadn't done a respec on since a couple versions ago). At this point, this is the build that I'm playing and I'm liking what I'm seeing and have to look forward to.

Ourouboros ... Pillar of Ice and Flame ... /em significant look

/em skeptical look

There's more than one Juan Jimenez in the world ...

Because even when you're told it ... even when you know it to be a fact ... you still refuse to believe the evidence of your eyes and intellect. The Russians have a term for that ... "Useful Idiot" ...

Have you SEEN what has happened in America in the past 3.5 years??? There are a LOT of Nazi Curious white supremacists out there in America ... still ...

Nope. They're white supremacist wannbe Nazis.

Ah, another 2D Cone user who doesn't know they can be used in 3D as a PBAoE-ish attack when doing a Hop 'n' Pop. Note that the Hop 'n' Pop can be used with ANY Cone attack (such as Empty Clips in the Dual Pistols set), it's just that Frost synergizes really well with it when Frost is enhanced for Range (of all things).

Not to put too fine a point on things, but according to the mindset of the 5th Column the very birth and EXISTENCE of such a person is a "betrayal" of The Master Race™. Every day is a good day to punch a wannabe Nazi in the face.

Reserved (just in case).