VV

Vee Stardancer One day as the Sisters ( The Sisterhood of Naughty Space Vixens SG) were cruising the starways looking for trouble, they came upon oddity. A rogue planet, a lonely planet with no sun drifting in space. Given an event this rare, they figured might as well scan it on the way by. Not really expecting to find anything exciting, they were surprised by an odd energy signature, seemingly alive, but not like anything they had heard of. Investigating, the away team found an amorphous glowing being, dormant. As they poked at it, it started to take shape, forming a large, glowing female humanoid form. As they backed away and drew their weapons, they “heard” a gentle voice (impossible in space, of course) say, “Be calm, I welcome you to my grave, I had not even hoped to ever see another living being again. My name is unpronounceable to your kind, but you may call the Vee Stardancer.” They took “her” to the ship and Vee explained that she was the heart of a dying star. An ancient star that had burned out long ago. She had been quietly lying there on the last of her planets for ages. Captain Bellonda demanded further information. Vee explained that all stars are sentient. When most die, they explode to space gas, or implode to black holes. In her case, she had burned out so slowly, that she coalesced into the small energy blob they had discovered. The Captain wanted to know more, but they had to get moving to their next score. Frustrated that there was nothing of value on the dead planet, Bellonda was at least satisfied that there was new knowledge to be had. And, Vee didn't seem to eat anything. So, she decided to keep Vee aboard as they moved on. Vee was just happy to be around other sentients, having been alone for so long. As they flew along, Vee told the story of the living stars, to the best of her knowledge. Then she started telling stories of all she had seen over her long, long life. The formation of her planetary system. The rise and fall of civilizations. The rise and fall of interstellar empires. So many, many things she had witnessed. One thing that particularly interested Bellonda was the inability of full-sized stars to communicate in any way with the beings their systems hosted. Vee explained, as best she could, that it was an issue of scale, gravity, and time. Very little of what she said could be verified, which frustrated the Captain, but still the stories were interesting and the knowledge might come in handy someday. As the days went along, Vee kind of fell into being part of the crew. She seemed to enjoy helping with even the most menial of jobs, and there was rarely a lack of work to be done. She happily learned the games people play, and anything else she could stick her nose into. Though so ancient, her inquisitiveness lent her an almost childlike naivety, which was quite endearing to most. After a bit, they got to their destination. As they were doing the job, a fight broke out, of course. Vee gleefully jumped in, and that was when the crew that even a dying star wielded significant power on a human scale. After the fight ended, Captain Bellonda decided that whether Vee was lying, insane, or in fact was an ancient star heart, she was indeed a diligent worker and powerful help on the battlefield. All of the other Sisters seemed to like her well enough. So, she invited her to the crew. Vee happily accepted and has been riding with them ever since! Home Shard: Everlasting Powers: Fire/Earth/Soul Dominator Direct link - https://bit.ly/veestardancer Build:

@V.V in game. LIST of currently active alts (with quick links) Vulcana V (Fire/Fire/Pyre Tanker, War Mace/Fire Scrapper, Fire/Atomic Blaster, Fire/Dark Controller, Fire/Earth Dominator) H3ll Grrl (StJ/Rad Scrapper) Violeta V (Grav/Storm Controller) Vice Sisters: Valyntina (Mind/Psionic Dominator) and Valkyre (Arachnos Widow) Vengeancea (Rad/Dark Tanker currently) Doctor Vector (Illusion/Traps Controller) Victoria V2.7104 (War Mace/Ninja Scrapper) Vortex V (Electic/Energy Dominator) Vultarius (Dark/Savage Dominator) Vervei (Plant/Dark Controller, Join us every Tuesday on Excelsior for All Plant fun) Vitiatore (Poison/Water Defender, in progress)

Fixed that for ya. But, your point is dead on. More like worst of both, but yeah.

This is the most sensible answer. Why take a square scrapper and try to hammer it into a round hole? Scrapper is for DPS and a little bit of sweeping. You *can* do other things, but at what point do you hamstring your primary role to do so? The other thing to think about when teaming is that nobody is thinking, "Oh, I'll invite this Scrapper and they will fill the Tank hole." No, they are thinking, "I'll invite this scrapper and it will up our kill speed with their great damage output." Certainly, do not neglect your armors, but focusing on them at the expense of your damage just seems to say maybe just play a tanker.

Here's a surprising revelation, some tankers don't even take taunt at all, and still tank just fine.

No worries, I don't think he can make it tonight, but I will see about recruiting some others

Honestly, for me, this one thing would be enough. Still would not be up with the best, but it would be a good solid choice.

Okay, you hear a lot about Altitis (I don't actually have that), but does anyone else have SHARDITIS??? I really enjoy playing on all the different shards of Homecoming. Haven't made it to Reunion, yet, but I will. I am really glad we have the easy shard-jumping options. I keep at least a couple characters on each shard, at least one 50. But, sometimes depending what is happening where, I like to swap them around. I have taken to putting a tag in the description of each one to remind me which server I am on while logged in. The Global shard-specific channels are great. That way if I am on one shard and see something interesting happening on another, I can swap over. I encourage people to include those channels when recruiting appropriately. Each shard definitely has its own style, no two are alike. It is subtle, but there is definitely a different feel to each one. Each good. Each shard has different preferences about how they run and what they run, so by shard-hopping, I can indulge whatever impulse I have at the time. The only thing I really wish is that we could have cross-shard supergroups, but I realize that is probably impossible and certainly improbable. Not a biggie, though, I'm glad enough for the plentiful shard-switching tokens we get. Anyway, any other Shardhoppers out there? Shardaholics unite!

Looking forward to tonight! What is the plan(t) for tonight? Level-restricted stuff or nah. I'm trying to get a friend of mine with a Planter who is Shard-locked on Indom to enjoy some Sharditis like I do and bring it over onto Excel to join the crew.

I have a Psi/Bio Brute that is a lot of fun. I haven't gotten around to tricking her out with purples and ATOs and such, yet. I'll let you know how it goes once I do. I hope it doesn't suck. I already trashed a TW/Rad brute because it sucked. Don't want to do another. Then again, it could just be that I should switch to scrappers for melee DPS builds.

DIBS

I have a WM/Ninja scrap that rocks!

This is awesome, as always. Next month's stats, including March are going to be verrrrrrry iiiiiinterestink. Is it possible to get a graph of "Archetype Time Played no in AE"? I don't know if you can pull out what zone someone is in, and disclude the time in AE. Come to think of it, a chart of time played by zone would also be fun.

Good stuff! I was originally thinking of Earth/Earth, but I'm not so much a fan of those big earth blobs from the control set. Now I'm thinking Ice/Earth sounds like a lot of fun. I do love slow, and having the slow aura is awesome. All of the opponents trying to run up and punch you with their big hit are like, IIIIIIIIIIIII''''mmmmm coooooommmmmminnnnggg toooooooo geeeeeeeet youuuuuuuuuuuuuu. It especially messes with the Minos and Cyclops in the ITF. Hilarious. Thanks for all the tips and ideas!

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. I've put together some pretty weird Dom combos and they all perform astonishingly. I like it because generally you can build however you want, and as long as you slot intelligently, you are going to do well.

So, Verve took Mace Mastery because the Spider seemed like a good in-theme pet. Also took Scorpion Shield and Personal Force Field. The PFF is sweeeeet in a pinch.

Yes, but you can't swap out Possess for Dark Grasp. Like I said, if you are going for soloing AVs, then you do want Possess, you could dump an AOE in your secondary for it. It all depends on your secondary, really. If you have something extra you can dump, you could pick up Possess.

Well, we talked about the most blastery dom, so I thought this would be a good subject. I have a Dark/Savage melee dom and it is ridiculously fun and powerful. Now I'd like to make another melee/dom and wondering your thoughts on the best combo to achieve this. I am thinking maybe Ice/Earth, maybe? What are the primaries & secondaries with the most melee stuff?

I second these. Dark is an amazing armor set. Savage, Claws, and Street Justice are all fast animation attacks. They all kind of have thematic symmetry with Dark, too. The other primary I recommend is Bio. Also hard to kill and versatile. Plus, with the triple forms, you can adapt to a variety of situations. I tried an Ice/Ice and couldn't deal with it. The attacks feel fluffy, not like you're pounding someone at all. The Ice Armor looks dorky. Just didn't enjoy it at all, but YMMV.

My 2 mains are a tanker and a controller, and I can tell you this is 1000% true. Blasters and other stuff often think they can lead out, and sometimes they can, but it really tends to be the Controllers that push hard. This is one of the best points of this thread. Lots of things can "take the alpha", lots of things can mitigate damage. But, very few can do both while actually moving a mob at the same time. Gathering things into a tight cluster is really where tanks excel. (Of course there are a few exceptions, no need to point that out, we are talking in general.) And that is generally what I focus on when tanking. As I've mentioned, my favorite thing is those big rooms with all the groups standing around. My goal is to get that room cleared without having the team move at all. I run around pulling the other mobs into the already set location DoTs and debuffs. Timed just right, you can keep the mayhem going without overwhelming the team. When practicing "not that guy" tanking, this is a good test. Just don't do this. This is exactly a "that guy" activity. The problem with most "that guy" (TG) tankers is that they do not realize that any time a blaster (or anyone else) is not mashing attack buttons, or buff/debuff, is a waste of time. Movement is a waste of time. Waiting for a "pull" is a HUGE waste of time. Faceplanting is a big waste of time. Looking for the next mob is a waste of time. Healing is even a waste of time. The goal of a NTG (not that guy) tankers is to minimize the need for any of those. Ideally, the mission should proceed from fight to fight without any pause. That means that as soon as the team arrives at a new group, there should be no need to hesitate. It should already be grouped and focused on the tanker and the team can light in even as they are ending their movement. Of course, nobody is perfect, but that is the ideal, that is the goal you are trying to reach. Advanced tanking is doing things like dealing with knockback happy teams, or teams that tend to split up, or overpulls. Keeping the team alive and moving when other people make mistakes is what you learn after you've mastered the above.

This is cool! Any idea on how much the Toxic hits would do with something less gimped, like 30% toxic resist? Also, I guess this would really only be a huge problem if the need came to solo, right? In team play, the tank won't normally be taking many toxic hits, or will they? Thanks much!

Looking through this, there's a few things, you might could trim up. Energy Font is better placed on something spammable. I have had as many as 3 up at a time. For mine, I put it on Living Shadows. Power Boost is best used for builds looking for max control, not max damage. For damage, I like the Fire Epic. Also, if you are Fire farming, Fire Shield is nice. The Soul Epic is also great for Soul Drain. On damage-forward builds, I also like the Patron Pools for the extra pet. Having another little buddy dishing out damage while you are busy is never a bad thing. It's fairly easy to get them perma. Have you confirmed that the Cloud Senses proc in Umbra Beast actually procs properly? I was under the impression that didn't work, but I could be wrong (in which case, I need to do some respeccing). I love the way you procced the heck out of HoD. I need to go do that to mine. That's game changing! All in all, excellent build!

First of all, great testing, thanks for that! Question. What about Electric Armor? Seems like that has some good tools for dealing with the Hami issues. Static Shield is a toggle that resists End Drain and Recovery Debuff. Grounded is an auto that resists End Drain. Energize is an unresistable self-heal, up to nearly 50% that does not require a tohit roll. Power Sink is a Self+End, though it does require a tohit roll. Pair it with Dark Melee, of course. What am I missing here?

I always take the AOE holds in all the sets because they are excellent "uh oh" buttons for when someone (usually me) over-aggros. Drop the hold on one of the groups and it gives you some serious relieve. The Dark hold is one of my favorites because it is location targeted, rather than target targeted. This means I can plop it wherever I want without retargeting. Also, being a field, it can hold enemies who move into it, so it can be set to block a door or something. You might choose to push it back a few levels, as you are leveling up, if you have something way better to choose at the time. The main two I skip on Dark are Shadowy Binds and Possess. If you are planning to solo AVs, you probably want to pick up Possess, though.

Yeah, it's a pretty ugly beast, and it's hard to recolor. But, my real question is, why is it, by far, the stupidest Dom pet available?? It's even dumber than the fire or electric monkeys.