Redlynne

"It was a dark and stormy night ..." Sounds pretty thematic to me.

It is, of course, perfectly possible to make a Bane based Huntsman, rather than a Crab based Huntsman ... the trick is the differences in the available powers on the Bane side and how you'd want to use them. The combination plays QUITE differently, since you don't have Serum and the extra Spiderlings (among other things). So long as you're happy with what you've made for yourself, then my efforts in this arena have not been wasted.

On my (tri-form) Kheldians I like putting the Teleport Stealth IO into Dwarf Step, mainly so it's in the same "place" on both my Peacebringer and my Warshade, and because it lasts for 120s after using the Teleport.

Back on Live, I remember Hovering my way around over The Hollows and hearing an NPC say ... "No man, I'm telling you, he got the purse!" Considering how up until that point it had been a forum meme (on the original forums) how none of the muggers ever managed to steal any purses, this was quite hilarious to me. Still is, actually ...

My Ninja/Time Mastermind is currently only Level 10 (or was it 11?). For explanation ... I've been spending way too much time Playing The Forums™ instead of playing the game ...

I was thinking in terms of keeping the Target Anchor AoE functionality of the power as is. What you'd do game mechanically is have 2 "auras" of Repel around the Anchor $Target. The "larger" aura radius applies a (for lack of a better descriptor) +2 Repel Towards the Anchor, drawing stuff in closer to the Anchor. The "smaller" aura radius would apply a -1 Repel Towards the Anchor (so net +1 Towards the Anchor) and a +1 Repel Perpendicular to the Anchor. The net result would be +1 Inwards (so slower than in the "outer band") and +1 Sideways ... causing additional $Targets to (slowly) "orbit" the Anchor when inside the "smaller" aura radius. After that, it's just a matter of making sure that the Anchor is not affected by the Repel of the power (so it doesn't try to "orbit itself") and you've got a "pull into orbiting" style of involuntary movement effect while everything (up to the Max Targets limit) is subject to a MAG 3 Hold.

Counter-proposal. Every $Target within the radius of Telekinesis are drawn TOWARDS the Anchor $Target. Oh and increase the Max Targets for Telekinesis above FIVE(!!) ...

So I was just running a Port Oakes mission on my Soldier of Arachnos this morning and was doing the first Billie Heck mission and noticed ... these Mooks are using Tommy Guns that use longer animations, and they have a different sound to them than the SoA/AR Burst animation does. Longer and also higher pitched on the sound (pistol ammo instead of rifle ammo being autofired) and I realized ... that's what Merc Pets are using. They're shooting the "Tommy Gun" animations. The big Marconi boss that I rescued? He pulled out a Tommy Gun and did a 6s Full Auto into a guy. So I think this is the distinction we need to be looking at, and why Mercs might have been saddled with the animations (and sounds) that they've got ... and why changing those MIGHT not be such a good idea for the overall "feel" of the set when listening to it. In other words ... needs more thought.

Gravity CONTROL might even benefit from this kind of a "do over" of basic fundamental game mechanics. Then again, I always wished the Paragon Stuidos devs would come back and backport the Soul Storm "tumbling in the air" Hold animation into Gravity Distortion, while keeping the old Gravity FX around the animation (so that Soul Storm would still look unique, just not AS unique).

You're quite welcome! Best part is, there's been a lot of research into procs done since I posted this build, and I've "learned" a few other tricks since making this build that I'd want to incorporate into it, including better slotting of Health and Stamina for increased endurance recovery. I'm also watching the Proc Monsters - Tanker Edition thread to see if any of my theories (such as the AoE-ness of Perfect Zinger in melee attacks) is borne out in testing ... because if not, I've got a different direction to go that's more Scranktroller-y than what I've got here (a mix of Immobilize, Stun and Knockdown procs in the Martial Arts attacks for sustained lockdown). Needless to say, those testing results are going to influence the direction of any rebuilding that I'm going to be doing.

CAN it be done? Of course it can! Will you LIKE the results of doing so? Probably not ...

Why hasn't this thread been stickied yet?

P2W vendor will give you access to the Origin attack power of your choice (I like either Amulet for Resist debuffing, Taser for Hold or Throwing Knives for additional DoT) along with Ghost Slaying Axe/Sands of Mu and Nemesis Staff/Blackwand as additional fillers for your attack chain. It's not the fastest way to defeat $Targets ... but it's adequate to the job. Mind you, as an Ice/Ice Tanker a significant portion of your damage production will come from Icicles, while a big boost to your survivability will come from Chilling Embrace. Draw stuff in and help them "exist to defeat" around you (so to speak). Use Frost via Hop 'n' Pop move to defeat them wholesale, rather than retail.

Insert World of Cardboard Speech here ...

Got random tell complimented on this today in game while in Port Oakes, so I figured I might as well share ... Yes ... once she reaches Level 24 she'll be getting a Crab Backpack that will permanently affix even MORE legs onto her costume ... even though I'm going to be playing her as a Huntswoman build using the Arachnos Rifle. Still, there's always the Alternate Builds option for using the Backpack attacks instead of the Rifle.

I count SEVEN times people have been told by Steampunkette and myself that THIS ... DOES ... NOT ... WORK. Still waiting for people to accept the answer that's been repeatedly given, rather than just drop it on the floor (again) and pretend they didn't understand what they were just told.

Uh ... that's pretty much "standard" for Immobilize powers? There's only a couple of exceptions and those are entirely dependent upon the powerset involved.

FINALLY. Data I can WORK with ... My experience has been primarily with Ninjas (go figure, eh?) and according to how I've seen them perform, then tend to cycle through their attack chains relatively fluidly/flexibly with relatively little downtime. The data you've posted provides an answer as to why ... Genin animation times (recharge times) Melee: 1.07+1+2 = 4.07 (recharge 3, 6, 8) Ranged: 1.07+1.07+1.07 = 3.21 (recharge 4, 6, 16) Jounin animation times (recharge times) Melee: 1.05+1.05+1.05+1.05 = 4.2 (recharge 5, 3, 9, 12) Ranged: 1.07+1.5+2+1.07 = 5.64 (recharge 30, 60, 4, 120) Oni animation times (recharge times) Melee: 1.67+3 = 4.67 (recharge 3, 6) Ranged: 1.2+1.17+2.67+1.07+2.03 = 8.14 (recharge 4, 4, 16, 8, 60) Now it doesn't take a whole lot of squinting at those raw numbers pulled off your spreadsheets @BGSacho to reach some relatively simple conclusions about why Ninjas seem to be so "fast" with their attacks and why they waste so little time between attacks waiting for power to recharge. Their powers animate "quickly" and they don't have "too many" powers to choose from in any particular category (melee vs ranged). Even the Oni, with all of his ranged powers, one of which is a Rain of Fire, manages to finish animating ALL of his ranged attacks (FIVE of them!) in less than 10 seconds ... and will have some of those range attacks recharged and ready for reuse before being reduced to needing to charge in to use a melee attack. My point being that the animation times and the recharge times ... sort ... themselves somewhat neatly/conveniently for the Pet AI to be able to cycle somewhat effectively, in my experience. Contrast the above performance with Mercs, and try not to groan ... Soldier animation times (recharge times) Brawl: 0.67 (recharge 16) Ranged: 2.2+2.67+6 = 10.87 (recharge 4, 8, 16) Medic animation times (recharge times) Brawl: 0.67 (recharge 16) Ranged: 3.17+2.67+3.17+1.87 = 10.88 (recharge 20, 6, 15, 16) Spec Ops animation times (recharge times) Brawl: 0.67 (recharge 16) Ranged: 2.2+2.67+1.87+3.83 = 10.57 (recharge 3, 6, 30, 16) Commando animation times (recharge times) Brawl: 0.67 (recharge 16) Ranged: 2.2+1.87+1.87+6+1.87+3.5+3.83 = 21.14 (recharge 4, 8, 8, 60, 16, 20, 240) Just LOOK at those animation times and compare them to the recharge times. I don't even need to get very far before coming to the blindingly obvious conclusion that Mercs are GIMPED BY DESIGN when it comes to being able to attack in anything even approximating a useful rotation of powers. Genin can unload a complete Ranged cycle of attacks ONCE and a complete Melee cycle of attacks TWICE in the time it takes Soldiers to animate their Ranged attacks ONCE. Genin can unload a complete Ranged cycle of attacks ONCE and a complete Melee cycle of attacks TWICE in the time it takes a Medic to animate their Ranged attacks and buffs ONCE. DISadvantage ... Mercs ... obviously. Jounin can unload a complete Ranged cycle of attacks ONCE and a complete Melee cycle of attacks ONCE in the time it takes Spec Ops to animate their Ranged attacks ONCE. DISadvantage ... Mercs ... obviously. Oni can unload a complete Ranged cycle of attacks ONCE and a complete Melee cycle of attacks TWICE in the time it takes a Commando to animate their Ranged attacks ONCE. DISadvantage ... Mercs ... obviously. Alright, I get that Brawl CANNOT be removed unless it gets replaced with another melee attack as demonstrated by Ninjas (Ninjas apparently don't have a Brawl attack ... funny that), but the solution to that problem is to just simply increase the recharge time on the Brawl power to be well above 16 seconds (so they don't keep trying to do it all the time). The thing that REALLY gets to me, looking at the data you've compiled for Mercs, is ... why are all of their animations so stupidly LONG? Are they just using OUTDATED animations that never got updated? Soldier animation times vs Assault Rifle Blaster animation times Assault Rifle Burst: 2.2s vs 1.05s (Burst) Assault Rifle Heavy Burst: 2.67s vs 1.05s (Slug) Assault Rifle Auto Fire: 6s vs 4s (Full Auto) Total wasted animation time on outdated animations = 4.77 seconds! Medic animation times vs Assault Rifle Blaster and Medicine Pool animation times Med Kit: 3.17s vs 3.93s (w/ 1s Interrupt) (Aid Other) ... recharge is 20s vs 10s (Aid Other) SMG Heavy Burst: 2.67s vs a stupid TEMP POWER port of a Stolen SMG! Stimulant: 3.17s vs 2.93s (Injection) ... recharge 15s vs 12s (Injection) ... and range is 25ft vs 40ft (Injection) Frag Grenade: 1.87s vs 1.67s (M30 Grenade) Total wasted animation time on outdated animations = 1.1 seconds Spec Ops animation times vs Assault Rifle Blaster SCAR Burst: 2.2s vs 1.05s (Burst) SCAR Heavy Burst: 2.67s vs a stupid TEMP POWER port of a Stolen SMG! Web Grenade: 1.87s vs 1.67s (Arachnos Soldier Wide Area Web Grenade) SCAR Snipe: 3.83s vs 3.67s (Sniper Rifle) Total wasted animation time on outdated animations = 3.13 seconds! Commando animation times vs Assault Rifle Blaster Burst: 2.2s vs 1.05s (Burst) Slug: 1.87s vs 1.05s (Slug) Buckshot: 1.87s vs 0.9s (Buckshot) Full Auto: 6s vs 4s (Full Auto) M30 Grenade: 1.87s vs 1.67s (M30 Grenade) Flamethrower: 3.5s vs 2.33s (Flamethrower) LRM Rocket: 3.83s vs 5.87s (w/ 4s Interrupt) (LRM Rocket) Total wasted animation time on outdated animations = 4.27 seconds! So THERE is our culprit for why Mercs are underperforming so badly. They're using outdated animations from pre-Issue 6 Assault Rifle and have never been updated to be worth a damn. They are ... literally ... GIMPED BY DESIGN(!!) ... an outdated design that is desperately crying out for an update. Fortunately ... there's an answer to this problem. We can rebuild them ... WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY ... So ... given all that info ... here is what I propose as to solution as a Change Log for Merc Pet powers. Soldier (use same weapon costume piece for all animations) Replace (old) Assault Rifle Burst animation with (new) Soldier of Arachnos Burst animation ... reducing animation time from 2.2s down to 1s. Retain all other parameters as is. Replace (old) Assault Rifle Heavy Burst animation with (new) Blaster Assault Rifle Burst animation ... reducing animation time from 2.67s down to 1.05s. Retain all other parameters as is. ADD new Frag Grenade POWER as additional Equip Mercenaries granted power to Soldiers instead of to Medic. Use (new) Soldier of Arachnos Frag Grenade animation with 1.67s animation and 16s recharge. This power is being moved from Medic to Soldiers. Replace (old) Assault Rifle Auto Fire animation with (new) Soldier of Arachnos Heavy Burst animation ... reducing animation time from 6s down to 2.67s. Reset recharge time from 16s to 12s. Retain all other paramaters as is. ADD second(!) Assault Rifle Burst POWER as an additional Tactical Upgrade granted power to Soldiers that is a duplicate of the above Assault Rifle Burst (using the Soldier of Arachnos Burst animation) power, including updated animation. Change recharge time on THIS version of the power to 6s up from 4s to avoid Pet AI decision conflicts. Precedent is the 4s vs 6s recharge times on Shurikens thrown by Ninjas. Medic (use same weapon costume piece for all animations) Replace (old) Med Kit animation with (new) Medicine Pool Aid Other animation MINUS the Interrupt time ... reducing animation time from 3.17s down to 2.93s. Reset recharge time from 20s to 10s. Retain all other parameters as is. REMOVE AND REPLACE (old) SMG Heavy Burst POWER with duplicate copy of updated Soldier Assault Rifle Burst detailed above. This is swap and replace to "standardize" the powers used by T1, T2 and T3 Mercs. REMOVE AND REPLACE (old) Stimulant POWER with (new) Medicine Pool Injection power ... reducing the animation time from 3.17s down to 2.93s. Reset recharge from 15s to 12s. Replace (old) Frag Grenade animation with (new) Blaster Assault Rifle . REMOVE AND REPLACE (old) Frag Grenade POWER (moving it to Soldiers instead) with the second Soldier Assault Rifle Burst POWER as an additional Tactical Upgrade granted power to Soldiers being the replacement power here (so duplicate of Soldiers on this one). Include changed recharge time of 4s to 6s as detailed above to avoid Pet AI decision conflicts. This is swap and replace to "standardize" the powers used by T1, T2 and T3 Mercs. Spec Ops Replace (old) SCAR Burst animation with (new) Soldier of Arachnos Burst animation ... reducing animation time from 2.2s down to 1s. Retain all other parameters as is. This is to "standardize" the powers used by T1, T2 and T3 Mercs. Replace (old) SCAR Heavy Burst animation with (new) Blaster Assault Rifle Burst animation ... reducing animation time from 2.67s down to 1.05s. Retain all other parameters as is. This is to "standardize" the powers used by T1, T2 and T3 Mercs. Replace (old) Web Grenade animation with (new) Soldier of Arachnos Wide Area Web Grenade animation ... reducing animation time from 1.87s down to 1.67s. Retain all other parameters as is. Replace (old) SCAR Snipe animation with (new) Blaster Assault Sniper Shot animation ... reducing animation time from 3.83s down to 3.67s. Retain all other parameters as is. ADD new SCAR Full Auto power as an additional Tactical Upgrade granted power to Spec Ops. Duplicate parameters of Soldiers (updated) Assault Rifle Auto Fire and Commando Full Auto powers. This is to "standardize" the powers used by T1, T2 and T3 Mercs. Commando Replace (old) Burst animation with (new) Soldier of Arachnos Burst animation ... reducing animation time from 2.2s down to 1s. Retain all other parameters as is. Duplicate of Assault Rifle Burst power given to Soldiers, Medic and Spec Ops. This is to "standardize" the powers used by T1, T2 and T3 Mercs. Replace (old) Slug animation with (new) Blaster Assault Rifle Slug animation ... reducing animation time from 1.87s down to 1.05s. Retain all other parameters as is. Duplicate of Assault Rifle Heavy Burst power given to Soldiers and Spec Ops. This is to "standardize" the powers used by T1, T2 and T3 Mercs. Replace (old) Buckshot animation with (new) Blaster Assault Rifle Buckshot animation ... reducing animation time from 1.87s down to 0.9s. Retain all other parameters as is. Replace (old) Full Auto animation with (new) Soldier of Arachnos Heavy Burst animation ... reducing animation time from 6s down to 2.67s. Reset recharge time from 16s to 12s. Retain all other paramaters as is. Duplicate of Assault Rifle Auto Fire given to Soldiers. This is to "standardize" the powers used by T1 Mercs. Replace (old) M30 Grenade animation with (new) Blaster Assault Rifle M30 Grenade animation ... reducing animation time from 1.87s down to 1.67s. Retain all other parameters as is. Duplicate of Frag Grenade power granted to Soldiers by Equip Mercenaries. This is to "standardize" the powers used by T1 Mercs. Replace (old) Flamethrower animation with (new) Blaster Assault Rifle Flamethrower animation ... reducing animation time from 3.5s down to 2.33s. Retain all other parameters as is. KEEP LRM Rocket animation as is. Reduce recharge time from 240s to 90s, since Pets are not affected by recharge, by design. There ... that should work, I reckon. Jettison the lame/old animations for all their powers, reshuffle the Frag Grenade between the Medic (why!?!) and the Soldiers (duh!!) and just let Mercenaries "do their things faster" using the existing faster animations. All we have to do is "repurpose" already existing assets inside the game and update the existing powers that Mercenaries use to reflect those changes (game mechanically) and they'll be on their way to being "fixed" as far as the end users (Mastermind Players) are concerned. The mere fact that pretty much EVERY animation used by Mercenaries was obsolete when the powerset was built ought to be the first clue that these Pets are DESPERATELY in need of an overhaul by the Homecoming Dev team. And yes ... part of the problem with Mercs (as is) is that they've got too few attacks each with absurdly long (obsolete!) animations and long recharge times that prevent any kind of attack chain "flow" from happening for them. They basically get "caught" in the granularity of their own attack powers not flowing well over time, unlike Ninjas (or really any other Mastermind Pet set, really). Any takers?

DOESN'T. WORK. THAT. WAY. My "authority" on that subject was the Devs at the 2011 AND 2012 Player Summit. They addressed the issue directly.

Why? Frozen Fists (ST) ... Frost (Cone) ... Freezing Touch (ST) ... and Frozen Aura (PBAoE) ... are all of the attack chain you "need" out of Ice Melee. If you take Ice Sword, it ironically winds up being a "filler" attack, in my experience ... and Greater Ice Sword just wastes space on the powertrays.

Most people aren't, but I've played enough with range enhanced Cones to know (and feel!) the added value of range enhancement in Cone attacks. I actually learned that trick from Frost on an Ice/Ice Tanker, and have been living by it ever since. Let's put it this way ... the "width" of the Cone increases with range, so the farther it reaches the "wider" it gets. How much wider? Well ... I hope you remember your trigonometry class math and know how to use the sin function on your calculator. Range * sin(arc/2) * 2 = "approximate" Cone Width @ Range 50 * sin(30/2) * 2 = 25.88 ft Cone Width @ 50 ft Range 78.15 * sin(30/2) * 2 = 40.45 ft Cone Width @ 78.15 ft Range An inexact rule of thumb then would be that for every 2 ft of range to $Target, the Cone width increases by ~1 ft at that distance. Cross-compare that performance with what you can get out of Suppression (the Crab backpack counterpart attack) with the exact same slotting. 50 * sin(60/2) * 2 = 50 ft Cone Width @ 50 ft Range 78.15 * sin(60/2) * 2 = 78.15 ft Cone Width @ 78.15 ft Range You basically wind up with an equilateral triangle shape (even though it's actually a Cone) where the inexact rule of thumb is that for every 1ft of range to $Target, the Cone width increases by ~1ft at that distance. The other thing is, the longer range on Heavy Burst lets me hang back at around 78ft distant from the action, which is barely closer than the 80ft range of Single Shot, Burst, Wide Area Web Grenade and Venom Grenade (in this build Frag Grenade has a 90.1ft range due to the slots chosen in Positron's Blast to avoid any recharge on the enhancements). This then "synchronizes" the ranges of all of the important attack powers as closely as possible, so you don't wind up with a "dead zone" for Heavy Burst between 50ft and the 80+ft of every other attack you'd be using. Without range enhancement in Heavy Burst, if you're going to use Heavy Burst as a part of your "regular" attack rotation, then you'd in effect limit yourself to needing to fight everything from 50ft away instead of almost 80ft away ... and that has consequences. I LIKE not needing to interrupt my attack chain to move 30ft closer to a $Target in order to use Heavy Burst on it (and everything around it). Nudging forwards to go from 80ft away to 78ft away takes next to no time and is rarely an issue, which gives me a LOT more freedom of position to be able to engage piles of aggro (drawn by the Aggro Magnet and/or Immobilized by Wide Area Web Grenade) so that I can unload into them with Heavy Burst with relative impunity from almost anywhere that all of my other attacks can "reach" from. It's really a simple quality of life upgrade, and it's one of those things you have to experience yourself before you really "get" how much of an improvement it is, because it isn't going to be something "obvious" at first. Actually, the reason for slotting the Analyze Weakness set is for the Accuracy and Endurance enhancement, since Damage and Range are already handled (and capped out) elsewhere. However, Endurance Reduction is the primary "need" for the two slots aside from the proc, so as to be able to keep using Heavy Burst repeatedly in sustained combat as part of a regular attack rotation (yes, even against a single $Target). I also wanted the 2 slot set bonus to Regeneration from Analyze Weakness, hence why I chose the enhancements for the job that I did. And, honestly, there really isn't "anywhere else to go" for Accuracy and Endurance enhancement, aside from common IOs ... but doing that instead only reduces the endurance cost of Heavy Burst by a mere -0.62 endurance per activation (which amounts to about -0.21 end/s reduction during the animation time) while losing the +10% Regeneration set bonus from Analyze Weakness that I kind of want because there are no healing powers (or procs) in this build anymore. And yes, there's all kinds of +Accuracy and +ToHit flowing in from elsewhere in the build (set bonuses, powers, etc.) shoring up Heavy Burst here, but if you're really wanting to have an Exemplar friendly build, you want to assume that not all of that extra buffing out of the build will be "available" at all times. As is, Heavy Burst is getting +15.3% Accuracy (not +ToHit, it's +Accuracy) out of Combat Training: Offensive ... and it's getting another +17.60% Accuracy out of that lone Analyze Weakness enhancement that buffs Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge ... for a grand and glorious total of +32.90% Accuracy before adding in any +ToHit buffs or global set bonuses on top of all of that. That's falling into the "just good enough" range of being workable when Exemplared down to Level 7, which is the minimum Level that Heavy Burst can be used at. Also, you want to be careful with looking at things like Accuracy and Damage numbers with all of the toggles turned on, in part because of how the Build Planner will factor in the Gaussian's Build Up proc into everything "full time" even when it actually isn't going to be buffing everything full time. Also, since Tactics arrives "late" in the build, it will only be relevant at Exemplar Levels 42+ and therefore can't "always" be relied upon to buff up the chance to hit on Heavy Burst at all times either. If that's your preference of playstyle, I'd honestly recommend reshuffling some of the powers and slotting then. Remove the Achilles' Heel proc from Heavy Burst. Swap the slotting of Single Shot and Burst ... and then add the Achilles' Heel proc to Burst (with the 5 slot Decimation set) for a full 6 slots there instead. This would give you a 6 slot Spider's Bite in Single Shot ... 6 slots of Decimation plus Achilles' Heel proc in Burst ... and 5 slots in Heavy Burst. Such a slotting would optimize more towards keeping the Achilles' Heel proc up on a single target, rather than spreading it to multiple targets for faster beatdowns en masse. Obviously, I'm reaching for a build here that is oriented towards ... high volume trash disposal ... rather than being oriented around AV/GM single target debuffing as the primary focus of the build. Your mileage may vary on this choice. Yes, but at very low Levels I find myself doing Single Shot/Burst/Single Shot rotations. I actually calculated it out after swapping the slotting, and the doubling up on Single Shot like that offers a greater chance to proc the Decimation Build Up than a single Burst. However, at higher Levels where you've got the attack chain filled out better, this 2:1 advantage to Single Shot in effect "disappears" but there will always be edge cases, particularly when Exemplared, where you'll wind up using Single Shot as a "filler" attack more often than you might otherwise think, and that kind of behavioral pattern gives Single Shot the "edge" over Burst as being the place to put the Decimation set, in my opinion. For the record, the difference between Single Shot and Burst when swapping the slotting for Decimation and Spider's Bite is around +3% proc chance on the Build Up, so it's not nothing. Because I'm old fashioned that way ... and because it helps remind people, in a very obvious way, that this is a leveling build that's meant to be exemplar friendly, rather than just a Level 50 Purple Incarnate Only build. If you open up a build and see that ALL of the enhancements are set for Level 50, you're going to (rightly?) assume that the build is only ever meant to be played at Level 50 (and above?). It's all about expectations, and the managing of them. Plus there's the fact that I'm not THAT skilled at manipulating the build planner, nor can I "enforce" certain things when the build is loaded up in other people's copy of the build planner. And then there's that whole "Get off my mutant Devouring Earth lawn!" around Terra Volta cantankerousness of mine that stubbornly clings to the idea that Levels 27 and 31 are still in any way "relevant" to build planning anymore when making Exemplar friendly builds.

As Steampunkette says, there was a ... premature optimization ... made with Repel (and Knockdown, and Restistances, and Mez in general, and ... you get the idea) such that there is no "pull" counterpart to the "push" of Repel. The closest you can get to approximating a "pull" would be extremely(!) clunky(!) ... and would probably require doing something completely off the wall bonkers, such as doing rapid succession SHORT range (like 1ft per activation) Teleports that move the $Target closer to the Attractor, and do it repeatedly for however long it takes to draw $Targets in closer ... so as to make it look like they're being "dragged" towards a central location (almost certainly a pseudo-pet) rather than being "pushed" away from it. And to make matters worse, that would need to be done via some sort of Grant Power status to every Foe within aura radius (subject to Max Targets limits, of course). I think that you can already see how this would start getting excessively kludgy in a big way in a big hurry ... hence why there's no mechanic in City of Heroes that supports this kind of functionality.

Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.1 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Arachnos Crab Spider Soldier.mxd

Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.1 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Huntsman 1 - Arachnos Soldier - Wolf Spider.mxd

Well ... a lot has been discovered since I recovered my Huntsman build post from the original City of Heroes forums currently on the wayback machine. There has been an incredible amount of research done into procs using the PPM formulas, and how to tweak builds to take advantage of those changes, now that procs aren't fixed percentages anymore. There's also been a number of other discoveries made with respect to how debuff procs stack (or don't), what kind of impact that can have on an overall build plan ... and more. And I've had more time (and experience with the new Build Planner(!) to learn some new tricks and shift some priorities around and, well ... ye ken hoo i'tis. The old post needed an update ... mainly because I'm using this build and I want to incorporate all the knowledge I've gained (and, let's be honest here, REgained!) since Homecoming went public just a few scant months ago. So here we are. The first major change that I'm making with this new build is that ... now ... I KNOW PROC FU. I've even gotten pretty darn good at calculating it myself, so I can "run a build up the flagpole" and see what kind of proc chances are in play before finalizing the build into a format that I find most pleasing for how I'd want to play. That then lets me know if I need to rejigger the choices of enhancements within sets that I want to use (and the Level I want to slot them as) in order to control those proc chances in a way to maximize their yield in the context of the overall build. Also, since there's been a recovery of a (unverified) PPM List I can review what sets offer procs that will best fit the recharge times and area factors of various powers. This is an incredibly valuable resource, since it now means that I can "tailor" the enhancement of my powers and "know" in advance how things ought to work together. The PPM List also answers some extremely important and rather basic questions, like ... exactly what does the Spider's Bite proc actually DO, and how does it "work" (per se)? It also helps explain what the Dominion of Arachnos proc does. And even better yet, it answers the all important question of what the difference is between the Superior and non-Superior versions of the respective sets is so as to be able to predict, with confidence, how upgrading to the Superior version will modify performance (for the better). So the first (obvious) change relative to the previous build plan is that I dropped the Entropic Chaos sets entirely from Single Shot and Burst. Part of the reason for this is thanks to the pioneering work I did on my Ninja/Time/Mace Mastermind build in which I found that putting the Decimation proc into fast recharging powers that are used A LOT has a very high rate of return on investment, particularly when looking at it from the standpoint of buffing an attack chain with one (or preferrably, more than one) attack in the 5.25s of Build Up buff duration being an AoE attack that can multiply the benefit of the Build Up proc extremely efficiently. Also, due to the structure of the PPM proc system, it quickly became apparent that the best place to put the Spider's Bite would be in a fast recharging power that otherwise would have a very poor performance if slotted with a proc. The combination of these two factors made Single Shot the best candidate for Decimation, due to how the attack rotation chains at lower levels of Exemplar where you'll often times be doing a Single Shot/Burst/Single Shot rotation while waiting for other attack powers to recharge. In these limited circumstances, making more attacks (even at a lower proc chance per attack) is a superior option when trying to get the most out of the Decimation proc for a Build Up buff. Likewise, practically by process of elimination, Burst became the best place to put the (full) Spider's Bite set so as to enable a global proc chance on every attack(!) for additional Toxic damage (8% in non-Superior, 12% in Superior versions) and which is NOT subject to PPM rules. Theoretically, I could swap the slotting for these two powers (Spider's Bite in Single Shot and Decimation in Burst) with the only difference being how often Single Shot gets used during attack rotations (once or twice per rotation, basically). This is a Your Mileage May Vary negotiable point. And since I was looking for places to put the ATO sets, it started coming down to where to put the Dominion of Arachnos set. Single Shot and Burst were already "taken" for slotting. Heavy Burst (in my opinion) REQUIRES frankenslotting in order to get enough Range enhancement into the power to give it enough "reach" to match the rest of the attack powers so you don't need to get closer in order to use Heavy Burst at all (and with the longer range you get a "wider" cone arc at the extreme limit of range, letting you hit more $Targets, potentially). That left only Venom Grenade and Frag Grenade as candidates for where to put the Dominion of Arachnos set ... and I'd only have 5 slots to do it in either way, since I wanted to have an Annihilation proc in Venom Grenade (lower PPM, larger radius, but much longer base recharge to compensate) and a Force Feedback proc in Frag Grenade (the ONLY place in the entire build where I could slot in the Force Feedback proc). The final consideration then was that the Dominion of Arachnos features a -Damage debuff and a Terrorized status effect and that it would be more advantageous to put that kind of a proc into Venom Grenade with its 20ft radius rather than into Frag Grenade with its 10ft radius. Fortunately this let me 5-slot the Dominion of Arachnos set (and get the global recharge set bonus) into Venom Grenade AND 5-slot a Positron's Blast into Frag Grenade (for another global recharge set bonus). After that, it was simply a matter of selecting enhancements from each set that would MINIMIZE recharge enhancement values (from the enhancements themselves) so as to be able to maximize the proc chances of the procs slotted into Venom Grenade and Frag Grenade. If I didn't have access to the proc formulas courtesy of @Bopper and others like @Sir Myshkin doing their extensive research on how procs function here on Homecoming, I wouldn't have been able to reach the conclusions (and build plan) I have here with the confidence to know that it's about as optimal as I can get given the mix of options. Another thing that I wanted to take a second look at was the choice of "timing" for taking a travel power, which historically had been Hover (for what ought to be obvious reasons), and determine if it made sense to switch to Mystic Flight for the all-in-one Fly+Teleport power (which is just fantastic!). While I was making the build you'll see below, I actually did go through a couple of iterations where I had "too many Luck of the Gambler global recharges" and had to drop one ... so I swapped out Hover for Mystic Flight. I even considered removing the Steadfast Knockback protection IO from Crab Spider Armor and instead slotting a Blessing of the Zephyr Knockback protection IO into Mystic Flight so as to reshuffle what my Resistance slots were doing for me. However, eventually I swapped the slotting in Maneuvers to be a full set of Reactive Defenses instead of a second Red Fortune plus Luck of the Gambler slotting like I have in Tactical Training: Maneuvers (which offers a much higher Defense value aura). In this case, I wanted the Scaling Resistances that Reactive Defenses offers, which then meant I had a free slot for another Luck of the Gambler global recharge and went ahead and swapped back to Hover. However, in the process of researching that option, I managed to squeeze an extra slot out of the build so as to put it into Fortification (now moved to Level 24, its earliest availability) and 2-slot an Unbreakable Guard into Fortification so as to get the 2 slot set bonus of global endurance reduction on every power (useful!) and have a place to put the +Max HP global enhancement, which in turn augments the rate of HP return via Regeneration and also works to multiply the HP gain from Serum(!), yielding a seriously increased return on investment. The increase in Resist All from this slotting in Fortification is for all intents and purposes almost a byproduct of the set bonus and global enhancement I was reaching for here. And speaking of Serum, I switched it from being 5 slotted with Doctored Wounds (for the global recharge set bonus) to being 6 slotted with the Preventive Medicine set, which thanks to its proc will just spawn Absorb shields every 90 seconds or so (the lockout time on the proc) simply because Serum has such a long recharge time that it'll proc almost every time the lockout expires. And it doesn't hurt that Preventive Medicine set offers a larger global recharge set bonus AND a global endurance reduction set bonus all in one power. Gimmie! In order to shore up the Ranged Defense hole that some of these changes opened, I had to go with a full set of Expedient Reinforcement on Call Reinforcements, sacrificing their enhanced mez power I'd had in the previous build courtesy of HO slotting ... and doing that then essentially "pushed" me to change Summon Spiderlings over to using a full Call to Arms set, since the Pet Aura globals are unique to their respective sets (meaning I can't use the entire set twice). Hopefully this will enhance the survival rate of these Pets above the baseline, particularly while within 60ft of my Huntsman (and therefore, my Defense aura powers), so they aren't quite so squishy. Owing to the changes in slotting for Health and Stamina, which dramatically improved the endurance recovery rate for the build, and the combination of set bonuses that yielded a very nice 10% global endurance reduction to all powers(!) helping to balance the endurance recovery equation in favor of longevity in heavy combat ... I decided to drop the Victory Rush power and swap in Stealth instead. This then makes it possible to "ninja" missions in relative safety when combined with the Stealth IO in Sprint. The "price" for doing all of this wonderful stuff was "harvesting" slots from other power(s) where they weren't as needed ... which in this case meant ... sorry, Tactics ... because with a whole other aura doing the job that Tactics does, you don't need Tactics for slotting in the Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control set into. And, seriously, if you're not slotting Gaussian's into Tactics, you're left with 5 slotting Adjusted Targeting (for the global recharge set bonus), but that's a whole lot of slots just to get a +5% global recharge set bonus. The alternative is to just turn Tactics into a 1 slot wonder power, accept the loss of a pittance of +ToHit buffing and reclaim 4 whole enhancement slots to be used elsewhere in the build ... which as you can see I did ... to increase the amount of endurance recovery (by adding a slot to Health) and increasing the global endurance discount from set bonuses and being able to 6 slot enough attack powers to make full use of the ATO sets and just generally squeeze little extra bits of performance out of the build around the margins to yield an overall superior result to the previous effort(s) I've made on this topic. So yeah ... sorry Tactics. I'm keeping you as one of my power picks, but you aren't getting extra slots anymore, since I've got better things to do with those slots. Totally not sorry, given how things turned out, but if I had more slots to play with I'd put them into Tactics again, okay? But since that's not happening, Tactics is reduced to being a 1 slot wonder power at Level 47(!). Only other thing I feel obliged to mention is that with the slotting I've got in Hasten here, Hasten is perma even without procs from Force Feedback ... so ... yay. Anyway, enough babbling from me about things hardly anyone is interested in ... let's have a look at the results of all this effort, shall we?