Zumberge

Generally, I'd like to believe that people would look at your character and understand what you're going for because everyone else has to deal with the same issue on some level. Game mechanics are the map, not the territory. If it was a full-fledged narrative independent of the game you wouldn't suddenly have new soldiers appearing once you hit arbitrary thresholds of power, which in turn were determined by an arbitrary number of defeats or accomplishments, and caused by getting advice from someone who got their powers from a magic belt and is also surrounded by at least a half-dozen people at all times. The truck or the APC or whatever would roll into the city hall parking lot with the full cadre and you'd fill out the paperwork and start, uh... arresting groups that were commensurate with your organization's respective power level. Provided that there's not a world-shaking amount of ludonarrative dissonance, the vast majority of people would be fine with it. "Elite mercenary leader? Are there soldiers? Are they shooting things? Yes? Looks legit."

Due to financial and health reasons I couldn't be around at the end; I stepped away some time in 2010. Between then and now I dealt with personal demons, updated a mod for an old game to a newer incarnation of the engine in the interests of historical preservation, started writing in earnest and got real good at it* but I can't link to any of it 'cause it breaks forum rules, and had a Roguelike phase and went real deep into first-person shooters. Incredibly deep; you could name one and I could just talk about it with no prep time for a good while. On the downside, all the places I used to work at are gone. Like, the stores and companies do not exist any more. But I do, so eat shit, cosmic entropy. *I know humility is a virtue, but so is honesty.

Gun is the best power because it gives you the ability to make things stop breathing. No but seriously, this is a good pitch. Within the framework of what we know is possible, and it fills a niche both in terms of concept and what Assault sets do. Or some sort of Control set featuring Gadgets?

I gave it a whack and the best I can offer is an alternate build. First, the bad news: You're not going to have perma-Hasten. Second, me trying to soften the blow of the bad news: Greater Fire Sword recharges in five seconds and has a critical hit bonus. Plus Shield Defense doesn't really benefit from recharge all that much since One with the Shield isn't affected by recharge. Granted, you also have Shield Charge which is, but if you were that dead-set on spamming teleport smashes you'd be playing an Elec/Shield. Now the good news: You have softcapped positional defenses. I was nearly hamstrung until I looked into it and found that while Phalanx Fighting gives you a defense bonus for nearby teammates, it also gives you an unenhanceable bonus just by having it active, which is enough to push you over the cap. The build should be, if not perfect, then at least functional if you exemplar down, and everything is more or less in a usable state; nothing is a stat stick. Plus there's no purples and only one PvP IO. Finally, neutral news: Grant Cover is in there and it gives people about 13% defense. Many people do try to softcap defense, but in the instances where they can't make it or focus on other things, well, it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it, right? Hero Plan by Hero Hero Designer 2.23 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Level 50 Mutation Scrapper Primary Power Set: Fiery Melee Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Speed Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery Hero Profile: ------------ Level 1: Scorch (A) Superior Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage (7) Superior Critical Strikes - Damage/RechargeTime (13) Superior Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime (13) Superior Critical Strikes - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (15) Superior Critical Strikes - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (40) Superior Critical Strikes - RechargeTime/+50% Crit Proc Level 1: Deflection (A) Serendipity - Defense (3) Serendipity - Defense/Endurance (5) Serendipity - Defense/Recharge (5) Serendipity - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (7) Serendipity - Endurance Level 2: Fire Sword (A) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage (17) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance (19) Touch of Death - Damage/Recharge (19) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (21) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance/Recharge (42) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative) Level 4: Super Jump (A) Jumping IO Level 6: Cremate (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (21) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance (23) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge (23) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (25) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (43) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal) Level 8: Battle Agility (A) Serendipity - Defense/Endurance (9) Serendipity - Defense/Recharge (9) Serendipity - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (11) Serendipity - Defense (11) Serendipity - Endurance Level 10: Active Defense (A) Recharge Reduction IO Level 12: Breath of Fire (A) Annihilation - Accuracy/Damage (25) Annihilation - Damage/RechargeTime (27) Annihilation - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime (27) Annihilation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (31) Annihilation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (42) Annihilation - Chance for Res Debuff Level 14: Build Up (A) Recharge Reduction IO (15) Recharge Reduction IO Level 16: Against All Odds (A) Endurance Reduction IO (17) Endurance Reduction IO Level 18: Fire Sword Circle (A) Obliteration - Damage (33) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (33) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (33) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (34) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (42) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 20: True Grit (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% Level 22: Kick (A) Empty Level 24: Tough (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) Level 26: Incinerate (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (34) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance (34) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge (36) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (36) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (43) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal) Level 28: Weave (A) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance (29) Red Fortune - Defense/Recharge (29) Red Fortune - Endurance/Recharge (31) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (31) Red Fortune - Defense (43) Red Fortune - Endurance Level 30: Phalanx Fighting (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed Level 32: Greater Fire Sword (A) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Recharge/Critical Hit Bonus (36) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage (37) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (37) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (37) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 35: Shield Charge (A) Obliteration - Damage (39) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (39) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (39) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (40) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (40) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 38: One with the Shield (A) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP Level 41: Conserve Power (A) Recharge Reduction IO (46) Recharge Reduction IO Level 44: Laser Beam Eyes (A) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage (45) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance (45) Thunderstrike - Damage/Recharge (45) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (46) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (46) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 47: Grant Cover (A) Serendipity - Defense/Endurance (48) Serendipity - Defense (48) Serendipity - Endurance (48) Serendipity - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (50) Serendipity - Defense/Recharge Level 49: Hasten (A) Recharge Reduction IO (50) Recharge Reduction IO (50) Recharge Reduction IO Level 1: Brawl (A) Empty Level 1: Critical Hit Level 1: Prestige Power Dash (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Slide (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Quick (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Rush (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Surge (A) Empty Level 1: Sprint (A) Empty Level 2: Rest (A) Empty Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift (A) Empty Level 2: Health (A) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance Level 2: Hurdle (A) Empty Level 2: Stamina (A) Endurance Modification IO (3) Endurance Modification IO ------------ Scrapper Fire-Shield for boards.mxd

Willpower is basically the lovechild of Regeneration and Invulnerability, just a bunch of regen and recovery and resists and defense layered on top of one another. It's hard to tell just by looking at it, but all of that adds up to a strong generalist. It's not a silver bullet against any one damage type, but it's also not painfully weak to anything either, so you can throw e.g a Willpower Tanker at basically anything and he'll be fine. Barring Reconstruction, like Croax said, it just sits there and does its job quietly. No shame in that. Granted, both Quick Recovery and Rise to the Challenge are really good powers, but if you're a Stalker and you're being surrounded and attacked by enough enemies to wish you had RttC, what is even going on in that mission?

A lot's been added, and I don't want to scare you off by dumping everything on you at once, but with regards to optimizing: You remember Enhancements, right? They added Invention Origin enhancements, which are basically CoH's equivalent of crafted gear. The plain ones don't get outleveled, which is good because you don't have to stop every five levels to buy SOs and re-slot them into your powers, and there's sets for the different types of powers (melee, ranged, defense buffs, holds, etc.) with set bonuses if you have more than one. If you have a build designer and a mind for it you can do some pretty interesting things with these bonuses. They also have sets with IO enhancements that provide stand-alone bonuses. You remember how you needed Leaping as a travel power pool, because you needed Acrobatics, because Dark Armor had no knockback protection which meant yet another toggle to run? Karma: Knockback Protection. You put it in a power and you just... you just stay on your feet. It was an absolute game-changer for Dark Armor and Fiery Aura, not gonna lie.

That was around Issue 3 or 4. Man. Yeah, this is gonna be really interesting for you, I can see it already.

I'm not sure when you played last, but nothing's really changed about Spines/Dark. It's still the toggle-heavy PBAoE damage combination with no knockback protection that it always was, with IO sets helping solve its endurance issues as well as making Cloak of Darkness' defense a lot punchier. Plus there's a Minimal FX option in the power customization section of the costume designer, so people can actually see what you're wearing and not just a big black blob of particles.

The easiest thing to do would be to use IH before standard meta fights, extrapolate the information on its performance and apply it across a longer time scale, i.e. if the power had no downtime. There's probably no shortage of volunteers, and failing that when the test server is about, it has commands that instantly put you at level 50 and give you all the inf and recipes you could possibly need. (Using performance on a test server to argue for buffing Regeneration. I like it, it's very cyclical.)

A'ight. Apologies ahead of time if I go over stuff you're already aware of. The build I slapped together has some PvP IOs but is mostly rares with the two AT sets, and no purples, with the powers picked such that it can function reasonably well when exemplared down. I know being rich is technically a superpower, but seriously (and anyway it wouldn't benefit much from the standard purple set bonuses). As far as the sets and maximizing go, Willpower is a combination of health regen, resistance, typed defense, and a little to-hit debuffing on top of that, so it's just layers of protection. It's all passives and toggles, so you don't need to worry about pushing buttons to heal; it just does stuff for you. It's really good, but it's also spread out a little bit in terms of things you need to consider. To that end, the build is at the Brute resistance cap (which is 90%) for smashing and lethal damage, because there's a lot of S/L out there. The defenses are between 30 and 35%, which I'm kind of proud of, and while Psionic defense is a little low you also resist it fairly well. As far as being mezzed goes, Willpower protects you from most everything including fear (which is rare, but does show up) and confusion, of all things, which CoT Succubi throw out. If you're standing next to an enemy you have a 600% regeneration rate, which is about 52 or 53 hit points per second at level 50; most of that is Rise to the Challenge. So Deo volente, you should be fairly tanky, and endurance recovery shouldn't be an issue. Dual Blades' gimmick is that it has four "combos" that involving performing three attacks in sequence, so it's got some versatility and neat tricks, but the damage isn't the highest and you're kind of locked in to specific attack chains. Many of its attacks are quite fast though, and even though I didn't go for recharge on this everything is going to come back fantastically quick. As far as Incarnate stuff goes, that's beyond my scope. Maybe Musculature Core Paragon for your Alpha slot and go all in on damage; it's what I would do. ...and the reason I asked redside or blueside was because I wasn't about to give someone Super Speed if they were redside (Grandville, man). So feel free to swap out SJ for SS or Fly at your leisure. Hero Plan by Hero Hero Designer 2.23 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Level 50 Magic Brute Primary Power Set: Dual Blades Secondary Power Set: Willpower Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery Hero Profile: ------------ Level 1: Nimble Slash (A) Superior Brute's Fury - Accuracy/Damage (3) Superior Brute's Fury - Damage/Recharge (5) Superior Brute's Fury - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (5) Superior Brute's Fury - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (7) Superior Brute's Fury - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (7) Superior Brute's Fury - Recharge/Fury Bonus Level 1: High Pain Tolerance (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% Level 2: Power Slice (A) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Accuracy/Damage (23) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Damage/RechargeTime (23) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime (25) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (25) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (27) Superior Unrelenting Fury - RechargeTime/+Regen/+End Level 4: Super Jump (A) Jumping IO Level 6: Ablating Strike (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (27) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance (34) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge (34) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (34) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (37) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal) Level 8: Mind Over Body (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (9) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (9) Unbreakable Guard - Endurance/RechargeTime (11) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance (11) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime (21) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP Level 10: Indomitable Will (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance (13) Luck of the Gambler - Defense (13) Luck of the Gambler - Endurance/Recharge (15) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (15) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed Level 12: Blinding Feint (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (37) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance (39) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge (39) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (39) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (40) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal) Level 14: Typhoon's Edge (A) Obliteration - Damage (40) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (40) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (42) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (42) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (42) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 16: Rise to the Challenge (A) Preventive Medicine - Heal (17) Preventive Medicine - Heal/Endurance (17) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime/Endurance (19) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff (19) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff/Endurance Level 18: Vengeful Slice (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (43) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance (43) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge (43) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (45) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (45) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal) Level 20: Quick Recovery (A) Endurance Modification IO (21) Endurance Modification IO Level 22: Fast Healing (A) Healing IO Level 24: Kick (A) Empty Level 26: Sweeping Strike (A) Obliteration - Damage (45) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (46) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (46) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (46) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (48) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 28: Heightened Senses (A) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance (29) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Recharge (29) Gift of the Ancients - Endurance/Recharge (31) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (31) Gift of the Ancients - Defense Level 30: Tough (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (31) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (33) Unbreakable Guard - Endurance/RechargeTime (33) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance (33) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime Level 32: One Thousand Cuts (A) Obliteration - Damage (48) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (48) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (50) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (50) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (50) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 35: Weave (A) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance (36) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Recharge (36) Gift of the Ancients - Endurance/Recharge (36) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (37) Gift of the Ancients - Defense Level 38: Strength of Will (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) Level 41: Superior Conditioning (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End Level 44: Physical Perfection (A) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery Level 47: Combat Jumping (A) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) Level 49: Resurgence (A) Recharge Reduction IO Level 1: Brawl (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Dash (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Slide (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Quick (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Rush (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Surge (A) Empty Level 1: Fury Level 1: Sprint (A) Empty Level 2: Rest (A) Empty Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift (A) Empty Level 2: Health (A) Regenerative Tissue - +Regeneration Level 2: Hurdle (A) Empty Level 2: Stamina (A) Endurance Modification IO (3) Endurance Modification IO ------------ | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1516;654;1308;HEX;| |78DAAD944B73124114857B60268404C233212421C140084280E063AB5591C4B212A| |AB2D22585B14346A7806288CAD25FE1D6E7D6A50BFF896FDD6995AF455E9AE87899| |7B2AB16AB676157CD3A7FB769FDB7D67AA772BBE6797EF5D14CAF025A36E9AB5A5C| |E76576AD57A43DF10FDE6A15FCC166B55694859AC6CD78DDA9251BF214DE815B929| |9BA62C5ED30DA3DDBA233BC2B7DE6A19C535596FEBCD86DFEEACE88DAD2EF54276E| |F4AF3B66EEAD77543EFF67C18EF36A569C697DBFA4671B9293B8D5EAD5A37BBB2D3| |634FE364E43CFD76FAAE94FE9FA589076E21CAAA703D64AA8FC0C7CC8127E053E6C| |B9358CA8A1E12AAD8ED4B584FF1A9F6BC313F38C21C0F8041E6448819A3D3710B5E| |CF9D15B6B647D058D3B44DD6261ACC535BA00EDE64A66F315FF50F1C5E3C3BEC797| |017DC630EED8307CCE84FE61B8AF272ACEA0D2AB6E68B8261E648041C651ED0EC61| |FB402C6D185ED3F09A81D70CBC66E0751E5EF7097EE4E93F74F1D811F89B79FA0F6| |88182BDBEA5A8807DE8961AF8C45AF033F885197ECE31E117CC5F343B84FD42F09A| |83D71CBCE6E075015E17E0F51D21C267A34492AC45C1D78451D4C4689A3517DD6B0| |CF71AB3A889437A8E63F738B25D40B605645B40B605645B42B6EF296A123733A9D2| |C3BC2AA634708039ED0107996E7290404C0295308D4A48A21292A884242AE18866C| |FC0E30C3C96E0B1048F65782CC363191E55DA6F16FBCDC2630A1E53F09882C7343C| |7EA4D97338A5B933BC8E97AE288BD3CCDEE73D7CA4E5A1E5AF72E58DD17E4568C55| |58EFD40BD45ACB798E79B9852051ABDB1F64DE41CCAA243293B94B30EE59C435951| |8FBF0ED69A63745DC520298AAD7883C76FBFF575E8F82B82D1EFFF2A17F85BF3CD3| |1EBC789A228A8481768FDE7F617E0C23F44| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Not gonna lie: This build could use a little work. I've been meaning to fiddle a bit with Dual Blades, though, so I can probably whip up an example build, though considering it's a Brute it's gonna gravitate more towards giving you the ability to survive Armageddon than anything else. Just general stuff, though? Dual Blades' combos are very dependent on you having all the attack powers available to you; Rise to the Challenge should be obtained as soon as humanly possible because Willpower thrives on layers of defensive measures; you generally only need one travel power - if you're redside I'd say Superjump, blueside you can get away with Superspeed; Acrobatics isn't great because WP has knockback and hold protection already; and putting slots into Health or regen passives doesn't really pay off. Don't sweat making mistakes, though. It's how we learn, and in any case I can look at this and kind of follow what you were going for.

Psionics is a multi-faceted discipline, so you can have people who can't read minds to save their lives yet can make the molecules of every person in a hundred yard radius vibrate so hard they all burst into flame. Your character's mental powers most likely manifest as telekinesis, so Energy Aura is a mental repulsion field and the "knives" they wield with Psi Melee are simply force applied to opposite sides of a flat plane, creating a narrow cutting edge. "But what about Boggle?" You're on your own with that one. I had a Dark Melee Brute who got his powers from doing a ton of cocaine and I never had a reason why Touch of Fear worked. Sometimes you need to handwave things a little.

Saw your build and I'm not familiar with Claws, but I know a little bit about Elec Armor and some of it seemed a little... off. So I gave it a whack and tried to keep it to the spirit, if not the letter. Capped S/L/E and 41.8% melee defense, with a usable Energize and Power Sink. With a little shuffling you could replace Static Discharge with the Mu summon and still have similar defense/resist values. Or just not take the Mu summon and get Taunt instead because I'm pretty sure you could tank a lot of endgame AVs. If you have any questions as to why certain things are a certain way I'll be glad to answer them, assuming I can remember why I did it. Villain Plan by Hero Villain Designer 2.23 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Magic Brute Primary Power Set: Claws Secondary Power Set: Electric Armor Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leaping Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery Villain Profile: Level 1: Strike (A) Empty Level 1: Charged Armor (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (3) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (3) Unbreakable Guard - Endurance/RechargeTime (5) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance (5) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime (7) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP Level 2: Slash (A) Superior Brute's Fury - Accuracy/Damage (23) Superior Brute's Fury - Damage/Recharge (23) Superior Brute's Fury - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (33) Superior Brute's Fury - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (33) Superior Brute's Fury - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (33) Superior Brute's Fury - Recharge/Fury Bonus Level 4: Super Speed (A) Run Speed IO Level 6: Spin (A) Obliteration - Damage (9) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (9) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (19) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (21) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (21) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 8: Follow Up (A) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Accuracy/Damage (34) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Damage/RechargeTime (34) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime (34) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (36) Superior Unrelenting Fury - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (36) Superior Unrelenting Fury - RechargeTime/+Regen/+End Level 10: Static Shield (A) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance (11) Aegis - Resistance/Recharge (11) Aegis - Endurance/Recharge (13) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge (13) Aegis - Resistance (19) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance Level 12: Conductive Shield (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (15) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (15) Unbreakable Guard - Endurance/RechargeTime (17) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance (17) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime Level 14: Lightning Field (A) Obliteration - Damage (42) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (42) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (42) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (43) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (43) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 16: Grounded (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% Level 18: Focus (A) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage (39) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance (39) Thunderstrike - Damage/Recharge (40) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (40) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (40) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 20: Lightning Reflexes (A) Run Speed IO Level 22: Boxing (A) Empty Level 24: Tough (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (25) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (25) Unbreakable Guard - Endurance/RechargeTime (27) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance (27) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime Level 26: Eviscerate (A) Obliteration - Damage (29) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (29) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (31) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (31) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (31) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 28: Energize (A) Preventive Medicine - Heal (36) Preventive Medicine - Heal/Endurance (37) Preventive Medicine - Endurance/RechargeTime (37) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime (37) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime/Endurance Level 30: Weave (A) Reactive Defenses - Defense (48) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance (50) Reactive Defenses - Endurance/RechargeTime (50) Reactive Defenses - Defense/RechargeTime Level 32: Shockwave (A) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage (43) Positron's Blast - Damage/Endurance (45) Positron's Blast - Damage/Recharge (45) Positron's Blast - Damage/Range (45) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance Level 35: Power Sink (A) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Accuracy (39) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Recharge (46) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Accuracy/Recharge (50) Efficacy Adaptor - Accuracy/Recharge Level 38: Mu Lightning (A) Empty Level 41: Static Discharge (A) Detonation - Accuracy/Damage (46) Detonation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (46) Detonation - Damage/Endurance/Range (48) Detonation - Damage/Endurance (48) Detonation - Damage/Recharge Level 44: Summon Striker (A) Empty Level 47: Combat Jumping (A) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) Level 49: Power Surge (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) Level 1: Brawl (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Dash (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Slide (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Quick (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Rush (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Surge (A) Empty Level 1: Fury Level 1: Sprint (A) Empty Level 2: Rest (A) Empty Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift (A) Empty Level 2: Health (A) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance Level 2: Hurdle (A) Empty Level 2: Stamina (A) Endurance Modification IO (7) Endurance Modification IO ------------

Cold Domination and Heat Loss. The recharge is a little long but if you pop that in a group about ten enemies are gonna lose 66 points of endurance if you've got it six-slotted with Efficacy Adaptor.

Well, let's go down the list: Superior Conditioning is just 5 more Endurance; you get a bigger blue bar. With a 50 EndMod IO that goes up to 7 and change, or you can put a Performance Shifter: Chance for +End proc in there if you didn't already put it in Stamina. Endurance recovery is calculated based upon your maximum endurance value, so this would make it go up five percent faster. Not a flat five percent added on, mind you, just multiply your current endurance recovery rate by 1.05 and you'll get the new total with this. Focused Accuracy is silly expensive and while bonus accuracy isn't bad, you probably already have enough in your attacks by the time you get it. If IO sets didn't exist I could see it being useful as a way to get out of slotting accuracy in your attacks, but they do exist, and even if they didn't it's still silly expensive and you'd be slotting for endurance reduction instead to compensate for an unmodded endurance drain of 0.78 endurance a second. Plus if you ever get a smoke grenade to the face, yellows exist, and I'm pretty sure Invulnerability has a +to-hit power somewhere in there anyway. Physical Perfection is a small amount of health regen and endurance recovery. It takes both healing and endurance modification IOs, however, which means that if you didn't have room in your build for a Miracle, Numina's Convalescence, Panacea, or Preventive Medicine proc, you have it now. Pine's is telling me that this would get you more endurance recovery unslotted than Superior Conditioning with a 50 EndMod IO, and that's before the aforementioned IOs. Energy Torrent is the attack from Energy Blast with reduced damage and a longer recharge time. Knockback usually isn't the most welcome thing to a Brute. All told, if you had to pick one then your best bet is probably Physical Perfection.

Gonna level with you, OP: I've kind of taken it upon myself to be a professional NPC. Most of the characters I make, assuming they're at least partially serious, already have stories to their names, and I figure people need another warm body on a team who knows what they're doing and can provide sick bants to make the Dr. Quaterfield go more smoothly over another person in the Pocket D waiting for someone to ask about their tragic backstory. So I provide local color. (But if the worst-case scenario happens and I do end up in someone else's plot line, hell, I'll write it myself. Just a long-form story featuring everyone's characters. Done it before, do it again.)

The argument for Shield Defense working better on Scrappers is something I haven't seen, but if I had to make an educated guess it would go something like this: Firstly, it's a defense-based set. There's a little bit of resistance in Deflection and True Grit, but overall it's a set about avoiding hits rather than reducing the damage of hits that connect. To that end, every archetype has the same cap for defense, but Scrappers have a lower resistance cap than Brutes or Tankers (75%, compared to 90%). Which is not to say that resistance is bad on Scrappers, it's just that everyone is able to dodge equally well. Secondly, its taunt toggle, Against All Odds, which gives you +damage for each nearby enemy. Not only is the bonus bigger for Scrappers (it's not enormous - only 12.5% for the first and 6.88% for the second and additional, compared to 10% and 5.5% for the others - but it's there) but with their higher melee damage modifier they can do more with it. Frequent yet transitory debates about Scrapper versus Brute damage aside, of course. With regard to Tanker performance, their defensive sets all have higher values for defensive stats, i.e. resistance and defense. Deflection on Scrappers and Brutes is 11.5% melee defense, for example, while on Tankers it's 15%. This also extends to Grant Cover, their PBAoE toggle that gives your teammates additional defense.

If you're going for pure damage then you're better off with other sets like Ice Blast. Electric Blast isn't bad, but it's the kind of set that benefits the most when you stack it. By itself you're not going to be able to sap endurance en masse, but if you get three or four other people with Elec Melee/Control/Blast/Assault in one place then you can get some amazing nonsense going. Which is something you can't say for Radiation Blast, for instance.

What you do remember would translate well enough. Elec Melee is the same for both Scrappers and Brutes, barring the different melee damage modifiers. Get everything up to Thunder Strike and coast on that until Lightning Rod. Chain Induction's reliability as a multi-target attack is a little hit and miss; I have it on a Stalker and I feel lucky if it gets even two guys. Skip the taunt since you're not gonna be tanking and skip Lightning Clap; it doesn't deal damage and just tosses everyone around unless you go out of your way to make it not do that. Once you get up to the point where you're getting set IOs into its attacks, Elec Melee has some options if you want to do stupid proc tricks. Many of its attacks cause endurance drain, so it accepts Endurance Mod sets, meaning you can add Energy Manipulator: Chance to Stun to them and flex on Energy Melee (bonus points if you do take Lightning Clap just to stack stuns on things). Alternately, the first three also cause sleep, so you can use Call of the Sandman: Chance of Heal Self and literally shock the life out of people, or just put a level 50 EndMod IO in them, team up with other Elec characters, and make everything with a blue bar cry salty bitch tears. I can't say how useful any of this would be, though, and there could be set bonuses you're missing out on, but you can absolutely do it. Elec Armor is also the same, right down to the resistance values; only difference is that Scrappers have a resist cap of 75% and Brutes have 90%. Energy resist is gonna hit the cap without you trying, negative energy and toxic are a huge problem. A minor problem might be that Grounded gives you knockback and immobilization protection provided you're standing on the ground, so snipers are gonna knock you on your ass if you go superjumping through Peregrine Island. You have enough room to add Tough to shore up your smashing/lethal resist; do it. Power Sink works as both a recovery tool and a defensive one, since enemies can't attack if they have no endurance. Lightning Field is a PBAoE damage toggle; some people like them since it's more damage that works on everything around you, others don't since it draws aggro and costs as much endurance as two defensive toggles. Try it and see for yourself, but keep in mind that it also causes endurance drain, so you can slot it for that and use it defensively. As far as set bonuses for Elec Armor are concerned, you're going to be in melee so go for Melee and AoE defense. If you go the Tough route you're gonna have 55-58% S/L resist so it's easy to cap that as well. In an ideal situation you should be able to yeet yourself into the Honoree's face with Lightning Rod during the Lady Grey Task Force and survive long enough for the tank to get there. The set's in a good position since a lot of lategame stuff deals energy damage, but there's notable exceptions and you can feel it.

Based on true events. There comes a time when every man must set aside their differences in pursuit of a greater good, and in a realm as marred by conflict as Primal Earth, this could be nothing less than a war between dimensions. Hero and villain alike joined forces to strike back at the Praetorians, and it was at this juncture that they found themselves within the Seer Network, at the steps of perfect reflection of the Mother of Mercy Psychiatric Hospital, trading fists, blasts, and weapons with the super-powered mentalist Malaise. Malaise leapt back as a mace blow shattered the illusory wall in front of him. "Think you have this in hand, do you?" he sneered. "Fools. You are in my realm now. Here, I have the control. Here... I can make your nightmares come alive!" Raising his arms, he stared above the crowd before him. "I see a giant crystal... it moves! The Crystal Titan!" He swept one arm up and to the side, and the scintillating outline of a massive, gaunt humanoid figure faded into view behind him. "Arise, Titan, and decimate these Incarnates!" The group paused as one, looking from one face to the next before the head of the strike force turned back to Malaise. "The what?" "The Crystal Titan!" He gestured again. "The fearsome beast you... you..." His arm slowly fell back to his side. "You have to know this." As the team of heroes and villains conferred among themselves, exchanging shrugs and shakes of the head he added, "it's a Devouring Earth giant monster." "Like the ones in the Hive?" one asked. "You fight it in Eden." Noting their reactions Malaise added, "at the end of a Trial?" "You're thinking of Jurassik," another said. "NO I AM NOT THINKING OF-" He growled. "That's the Numina Task Force. I am talking about the Trial." Several seconds of silence later he offered, "the Woodsman Trial?" A collective "ohhh" went up among the crowd as they excitedly exchanged words. "Yeah, yeah!" the leader said, turning back to Malaise. "Didn't someone find a hole in the geometry that let you skip everything so it was only about two minutes' worth of work for a bunch of merits?" Someone in the back raised a hand. "That was me. I abused the hell out of that before they nerfed it." "So you remember it now?" Malaise asked. They nodded, and he nodded in turn. "Okay, good." He swept one arm up and to the side again. "Arise, Titan, and-" "Nobody here did it," the leader said. Malaise let his arm drop. "What." "Nobody has the badge, so nobody fought it, so nobody would remember it." "But you clearly do." "We do, but our characters don't. If they did that would be metagaming." "But I'm..." Malaise gesticulated. "...I'm pulling it from your nightmares. That's, that's kind of my thing." "That's godmoding," another hero said. "Our characters don't remember this, but you're saying that they do." "'Godmoding.' Godmoding?! I AM ONE OF PRAETORIAN EARTH'S MOST POWERFUL PSYCHICS, CONNECTED TO A PSYCHIC NETWORK. I AM LITERALLY A GOD HERE." "Okay, but you're godmoding, and if you're going to do that then I'm just going to ignore you." "Same," another villain said. Malaise slumped as he buried his face in his hands, making a sound akin to a buffalo forcibly trying to exhale its soul. "Fine." He made a dismissive gesture, and the Crystal Titan faded out of view, replaced with a towering, boxy machine. "Kronos Titan. You remember the Kronos Titan, right?" The raid group nodded and made various sounds of assent. "Are you sure? Not a lot of people run Crimson's missions. I know how fighting Malta hurts your feelings." The leader pointed. "Now you're just being petty."

If you mean a smashy kind of set with a lot of feedback to the hits, Stone Melee. Can't say for sure, but I can make informed assumptions. Psuedopets (like Burn patches) likely inherit the damage buffs of the player who summons them, but if they're classified as pets, then they only have a maximum damage buff of +300%. Enhancements will account for about +100% at best, so unless Fury is providing you with more than +200% damage (I've never gotten Fury this high), you're not losing out. You probably are, however, if something is buffing you beyond that point, like if a Kinetics user is hitting you with Fulcrum Shift.

This might sound strange, but Psi Melee. If you color the attack effects to be light blue they'd kind of look like Raziel's Wraith Blade (plus I think that he actually did possess telekinesis in Soul Reaver 1, at the very least). As a secondary Dark Armor would be thematically appropriate, considering the PBAoE self-heal is vampiric in nature and the self-rez is thematically appropriate for somebody whose physical body is only a projection in the material world and, as such, "death" is temporary.

"No Vanguard" is there because Vanguard is Not Fun To Fight, owing to how bosses can halve your max endurance for several minutes and every melee minion has a -30% lethal/energy resist debuff on every attack that stacks. This is the only line I'm gonna draw, mind; I'm fine with Carnies and Malta and basically everyone else, but Vanguard? Hell no.

This sounds like a bad marriage.

There's no want for contacts that give you randomized missions to run: Borea hands them out in the Rikti War Zone, there's newspapers and the radio, Marcus Valerius in Cimemora, people in the Shadow Shard (though why you'd want to do that is beyond me), those two guys in Dark Astoria... there's a couple, I'll admit, and nobody really needs more options that might not be used. But consider the following: There are interdimensional portals in Peregrine Island and Grandville. Infinite alternate dimensions to explore are right there but they're only used in mission arcs and task forces. For this, I am suggesting a mission giver of some sort who assigns you to do things like "collect samples," "set up resonance beacons," or "rescue our employees that we sent into this dimension." This determines what your objectives are - kill all, glowies, hostages, that sort of thing. Then you get sent to a portal, which sends you to an outdoor map. Any outdoor map. Populated by any possible enemy group. Now at this point you might be thinking, "isn't this really rolling the dice?" Yes, that's the idea: You don't know what you're going to fight until you get there. Could be psychic clockwork in the forest. Could be a ruined city full of Trolls. It could be an Oranbegan temple outdoors but covered in Neuron's Clockwork in a fit of cosmic irony. 50+4 Council radio missions in office buildings and warehouses are consistent (mostly S/L damage and they don't herd weirdly), but also kind of same-y. This isn't, by design. Plus it serves as a way to test your build out against different groups of enemies, or maybe a way to work on badge progress if you get lucky and end up visiting Outcast Earth multiple times. It's not really any stranger than that one mission from Unai Kemen that sent you into a world run by the Family and they were somehow armed with Praetorian Resistance weapons. Now I've been trying to unpack how missions "work"; if enemy factions have specific tilesets assigned to them (e.g. X has warehouse and blue cave, Y has warehouse and underground base) and these tilesets determine which types of doors in the world can be used to reach the mission, or if it's tilesets that limit what factions are used (e.g. warehouse has X and Y, blue cave has X, base has Y), or some other beast entirely. Regardless, this is a matter of coding which doesn't necessitate the creation of new visual or audio assets, though I can't speak for how much coding it's gonna take. Certain limits may have to be imposed, however: No Longbow for heroes, no Vanguard period, and power and enemy level scaling is entirely possible but if people think a level 54 Hellion is too weird then maybe that should be cut down. Or not. Plus the Grandville portal doesn't see much use in an exploratory sense, but that's easily fixed by simply reframing the missions, using the giant viewscreens as the mission entrances and having the redside mission giver be the Internet. Like, the actual Internet, as a continuation of what was established with Radio and Television. tl;dr, roll d200 on the encounter table.