Hedgefund

A 5th slot in UG grants Toxic resists, which for you with Elec, can use a bit of. I vigorously pursued Toxic on my Elec tank and got to over 60% Toxic res. Even a number like 30 would help avoid insta-face planting against that type. Oh I just noticed this is a month and half old, so I'm sure by now this brute has been built and incarnated, but still...

I searched for the word "bodyguard" and didn't see it, but it's one of the most important words for a MM. It is mentioned in the Blogspot link though. With /DA, you'll need to master going in and out of BG, or partial BG, since Fearsome Stare will cause mobs to merely cower and not attack, which will not initiate your minions attacking.

Are you thinking of Adrenaline Boost? Painbringer has no +rch (nor -rch). To answer OP - yes it works on pets.

I have to confess I really only read the first post, which is oddly one of my pet peeves, someone commenting without reading through. Anyway, "play how you wanna play" overrides all, no doubt, but I'm certainly peeved by "I do little damage, so why should I do any damage?" Here's some math: Some Damage > No damage. Facts.

I'm going to answer "which would you choose to maximize your chance to survive an encounter?" not "who has the most lifetime damage mitigation?" The reason I'm answering "most likely to survive encounter" is that in a game where you get attacked thousands of times in a session, there will be streaks. So conceptually, would I rather walk away from every encounter with 80% HP (please note this number is solely FOR EXAMPLE so no need to tell me how your res based tank finishes all encounters with full health), surviving every time, or walk away from most encounters taking fewer hits but sometimes succumbing to the whims of the RNG. So I'll take Res, to "bend, never break".

I love my Demon/Storm. I took the fire epic so with Gale and Bonfire (both with -kb) there's solid mitigation to start the fight then things get nutty with the storm goodies and 2 whip attacks from the primary + fireball. Big thumbs up from me for this combo.

When comparing Liquefy to Bonfire, the conclusion isn't "Bonfire is gamebreaking" it should be "Liquefy sucks". Because it does.

The "dribbling" is exactly what happened when the Overwhelming Force set was introduced and Bonfire with OF proc was indeed the best aoe control and I mean by far. It didn't take long before it got fixed to current behavior.

This goes back to live. The problem area seems to be right on the neighborhood marker. I just make sure to hunt outside that specific area.

The base empowerment station offers 20% global recharge for 90 minutes. This is true. It requires 2 common and 1 uncommon pieces of salvage Also, Dominator ATOs for 20m a pop, wha? I don't think I've ever spent more than 7M for any Dom ATO. I actually use Dom ATOs for my bottom feeder bids to scoop up and convert. The amount is proprietary info but still, it's a long way from 20M.

I eagerly would sign this petition:

I didn't even adopt the standard of ending all bids with something other than a 0 to avoid overbidding, but I do believe it's helped mitigate against this. Ending a bid with my "signature" amount makes me more mindful of the commas involved and has definitely made me aware of times I got carried away with button pushing.

Easy answer to the detoggle issue - Defense Amplifier. Mag 4 protection to all. The cost is cheap at early levels and irrelevant at a certain level of in-game wealth even for lvl 50. I have no doubt Time was built as it was as a response to complaints about other sets ("it does nothing for ME!") and now I'm seeing complaints that "it does too much for ME!" Devs just can't win.

After spending the first 9 months here getting reacquainted with my favorite MM primaries, I've been revisiting the ones I liked less, most notably Ninjas and Mercs. I can't dispute anything said above, especially with regards to damage output. One special oddity I noticed with the slow kill speeds - higher HP mobs like bosses would take off running even at like 60% health. I did manage to have a good pairing with Mercs - Electric Affinity. One positive for Mercs with the new AI changes they're quite disciplined and would stay in my Faraday Cage with little micromanagement needed. Also they stayed clustered together which works well with EA's chaining buffs. Anyway, just multiply all the damage numbers by some X where (1.5<X<2) and be done with it, no need to dedicate resources to a major overhaul, just make them suck less.

I'm going to guess the Blaster will pull away when team size increases due to Sent aoe target caps. That's assuming the Blaster has a build with bonuses to survive the return fire but... they do.

They exists as 57s (54 +3 incarnate levels). For a real challenge do the very last DA arc at +4 with AVs and the Avatar of Mot (name?) will be functionally 57. As for the question - I don't think these rewards have to make anyone more powerful. I remember some of them being QOL and I was happy to have them. One reward I can think of that I would LOVE that wouldn't break the game (more) would be the Steel Canyon ATT power.

You have to call the mission in when completed, so you can do his missions at your pace. Some are timed when you select them though, so if you are planning to stop for the session, either don't call in the one you finished or begin the next one.

I hate commenting on a thread where I've only scanned, not perused, about 1/3 of the comments, but the topic seems like a tempest in a teapot. I spend about 80% of my playtime on the PVP Server. I tend to go for vill accolade so I enter PVP zones frequently for relevant exploration badges and markers. I also like to have a Shivan in my back pocket for all my characters... just in case. In all these excursions to PVP zones on the PVP server, I honestly can't remember seeing a target con orange... ever. I know RV would be a different ballgame but the only thing in RV is the AV/Hero defeat badges and some explores. I haven't pursued those but based on the broadcast chatter I see when I log off for the pvp days job in RV, there is a real risk in that zone. When I go after those I might transfer. So I don't get it. If all else fails, and I were to get attacked in a PVP zone and didn't want to deal with it, I'm a button push away from bugging out, tout suite.

Currently you can "color up" reward merits and Empyrean merits into Hero/Villain merits and Transcendent merits, respectively. This has been a very helpful addition to facilitate transfer across characters. I think the 50-1 rate for reward merits is just right. This particular type of merit is earned quickly and in great volume so a number like 50 "feels" right to me. On the other hand, Empyreans are earned at a significantly slower rate and a number much lower than 50 can have a dramatic effect. You'll finish most incarnate content having earned 2 Empys (depending on a number of factors). 20 can insta t3 an incarnate power, 30 purchases a piece of VR salvage. So I'm proposing a middle tier between Empyrean and Transcendent merits, something in the neighborhood of 20-30 Empys for this new one. I'll arbitrarily suggest 25, just for the aesthetics of being the midpoint of what we currently have. What to name it? I dunno, I'll throw out something like "Sublime".

If you find a powerset inappropriate for an AT you can... choose to not play it?

I just stash a bunch of 100M e-mails out in the ether. This is for any character, whether a vet lvl 80 who blew his cash on amplifiers or a lvl 1 making sure he has Reveal. Typically for new characters, I take down 2 of these e-mails, grab whatever is available in base storage then pull down more inf from e-mail as needed, which is rare unless the build is heavy on winter-os, since I don't have a huge cache of WOs. Maybe I should finally open up those winter packs I spent (literally) all my inf on when they were 10M.

No doubt you're 100% right. This was definitely a "for the lolz" pick. Your suggestion - SOLD!

Got to 61.2 with some further tweaking. Can't say I made any notable sacrifices. I'm going to go with this unless someone shows a way to 70ish.

I'm constructing an Elec/Elec tank now. I remember the nightmares live on my brute with the same powersets when encountering Toxic heavy enemies. So this time I'm making Toxic resists a secondary priority. Secondary to boosting less exotic resists, +HP and recharge bonuses, that kind of thing but a priority nonetheless. So far, I've come up with 56% from bonuses. Add in another 7% from P2Ws Defense Amplifier for a reliable 63% res. Throw in another 5% from base empowerment for 68. I'm ok with calling it a day at this point but I'm curious if anyone's gotten to a crazy number, like 80. Even 73 from the build would be interesting to see (so I could get to 80 with amp, then be 1 orange skittle from cap) if someone's willing to share how they got to that mark (73% Toxic).

I'm not saying it's great, but I was practically forced into it on a stone melee brute. I 6 slotted avalanche in Tremor but the kd proc was causing random kb when it procced the same time the Tremor chance to kd fired and I NEEDED the Avalanche bonuses. Since I was deep enough in the fighting pool, I went with Cross Punch and I actually kind of like it. Stone doesn't offer much for AOE, so it provided something additional.