VV

This is what I thought. Regarding "strange" builds, times change. I played a Grav/Storm back on live when nobody wanted to play Gravity or Storm. Now I run into them all the time because people have realized how awesome they are.

I went with the 4 Cloud Senses. Plant/Dark and it rocks. Kills stuff way faster than I was led to expect.

Kind of depends on your tactics and slotting. I don't have anything slotted for EndMod, but it still tends to take only a few seconds. Toss Static Field, Chain Fences, Jolting Chain while standing there with Conductive Field and they are pretty much out of End. And the good thing is, they stay out as long as you are standing there with Conductive Field running. Plant is a lot of fun, too. I have a Plant/Dark that rules.

I dunno, my Mind/Psi gobbles End like you wouldn't believe.

For mine, I went with a fully melee concept, so I skipped Unkindness and Call Hawk. Blood Craze seems a bit lackluster, but I guess it is better than nothing on a Dominator. For Dark, I skipped Shadowy Binds and Possess. If you plan on fighting a bunch of AVs solo, keep Possess. I know some people skip Haunt, but I like it. It does decent damage and the Shades are actually pretty smart. Remember that Umbra Beast is both stupid and wimpy, so Haunt makes a nice addition to the pet crew.

I think at this point my fave is Dark/Savage, mainly just for the maniac fun that it is. I play it essentially like a scrapper with some control. But, honestly, Anything/Savage is just going to rock because of that crazy Savage Leap. I think in terms of ruling the field, that would be my Elec/Nrg. Between all that knock, and all the End drain, nobody on the other team gets to do much unless I say it's okay.

I have Soul Mastery on my Mind/Psi, and I like it a lot. Everyone loves more damage and accuracy and Dark Consumption means no more End issues.

That is a very nice build. I agree with Roleki, I'm not really sure you need Aid Self that much, especially without Field Medic. I think if you swap Aid Self and Aid Other for O2 Boost and Hurricane and you'll be happier. Hurricane is a huge ToHit Debuff and along with your high normal Def, you'll be practically unhittable, just be careful blowing stuff all over.

Okay, but then why wouldn't you just solo with a Scrapper or Blaster, instead of a Brute or a Tank? I mean, if the point is to get through the solo mission as fast as possible, wouldn't both those ATs do it faster than either of the other two? I mean, what is restricting your choice between just these 2 ATs? I mean, you have 15 ATs to choose from, hundreds of powerset combos, and dozens of Pool Powers. Out of those, why not find the combos that work the best for what you are trying to do? Which is, as you said: "solo hard TFs, SFs, AVs, monsters and other hard targets."

YES THANK YOU FOR FINALLY SAYING THAT. Brutes aren't wimpier Tanks, they are tougher Scrappers. That is why their special AT ability, Fury, is damage-related, rather than aggro-related. Whereas the Mastermind has a damage-mitigation special AT ability, Supremacy in Defensive. Anyway, now that someone finally spoke the truth, OP needs to restart those whoooooooole thread with Brute vs Scrapper calculations. Or, Tank vs Mastermind.

Once again proving my original statement, most people play tanks wrong, which is one of the many things that makes this whole comparison bad.

I'm asking what is your comparative results in those? If you have no trouble with them on either a Tank or a Brute, then, in fact, it seems like you are invalidating your own point, that Tankers are better than Bruters.

I just said those are regular play. What are you reading? What is the trouble you are having with those?

I would like to see that data, yeah. But, please include a Blaster, a Sentinal, a Controller, a Dominator, and all the other ATs. I mean, if we are talking about balance, why are we only talking about a few of the ATs? That makes no sense. Shouldn't ALL the ATs be balanced against each other?

So, SOs are the definition of "average"? Why?

Okay, so that is a legitimate test. Let's talk about that. What is the problem you are having while soloing your ITF, STF, AV, GM or other hard target? Also, you just proved me horribly right. I said Pylon solos do not come up in regular play, and here you are NOT talking about Pylon solos.

This is literally me. I chat a LOT while fighting. Having played MMOs forever, I'm good at putting out quick snarks while waiting for powers to activate. Everything I play becomes a tank, always charging in and playing from the center of the mayhem. Though I think Controller is my favorite AT, I am no buffer/debuffer. I do like sets that do that while doing something else, like the /Storm or /Dark set. Basically, I'm just a control-freak who loves mayhem. I tend to play fast and hard. I definitely min-max my characters, but staying within theme. I like both math and storytelling, so that part is fun for me. I also like to be able to help out the folks who aren't so math-inclined, so making sure my characters can stand up to a serious beating is important.

So, two things. 1) Tanks have always been OP, it's just that most people don't know how to play them. The recent buff just made them a tad more OP, but still most people don't know how to play them. 2) As I understand it, Tanks and Brutes are both capped at the same mitigation levels in terms of armoring (Def & Res). However, nobody plays an average character, so the question is kind of meaningless. The problem is, by looking only at one, non-normal instance, the Pylon solo, you have completely skewed the results in terms of how the ATs actually play. This situation literally never comes up in regular play, so you are testing something irrelevant.

It seems like this would be easy enough. Make a buffer/healer, like an Emp, Rad, or whatever. Go to MSR, do healing and buffing. And done.

Yeah, I know how to use Wormhole. I've been maining a Grav/ controller for years. That wasn't my question. In your original post, you mention opening with WH quite a lot. So, I was curious if you had determined a way to use that in practice commonly. But, I see that this is all speculative, so I guess not.

So, a couple questions. Does Energy Font do much damage? Seems like a lot of work to get it going reliably. Or, at least a lot of writing. Second, do you really run with teams that regularly allow you to set up with Wormhole? In my experience, crossing the distance with running is almost always faster than casting Wormhole.

I have researched this long and hard, and have not yet found a way to increase the mag of Wormhole's Teleport.

So, Mids claims that the Energy Font proc from the Overpowering Presence ATO procs twice per minute. If you put it in a long duration power, like Carrion Creepers, will it proc 6 times, once every 30 seconds, or will it proc once at cast only?

This is all great stuff, thanks!

So, if he has a damage proc slotted, he will do damage, but if he has no damage proc, he will not, is that correct?