Without_Pause

That's not at all the norm. Yes, the content can be frustrating in it's difficulty, but it is doable. I haven't gone though the content yet with Elec Armor, but I think that's one set fairly built to go through the content. It covers for all of the Energy damage you'll take on and you can get enough protection from Psy.

- You can leave Strike single slotted if you want. It really isn't needed. You can toss those slots elsewhere. I'm not sure if I have it even slotted in my Level 50 Claws builds outside of my Claws/wp Brute. I recently logged into it and was surprised how different it looked compared to how I would build it now. I've started but not finished redoing it. - I would skip Eviscerate as you likely won't need it. Again, if you want it for the set bonuses, I can understand. I would rather take Hasten and use those slot for elsewhere. - I would much rather have the CS proc in FU and slot out Spin with the SS set. Spin is your heavy hitter and it is PBAoE. You want that bigger crit going there. You can at least look into splitting the SS set to double up on the Def bonus. - I didn't take SoW on my Claws/wp Brute, but I would rather stick the +3 Def IOs in those two slots as a mule and use those new slots in HPT for something else. Case in point, I don't see the Unbreakable Guard +HP IO. - A Performance Shifter: Chance for +End is going to beat a common IO. - I don't see either +Res IO. That's +8% Res plus scaling. Since you are over with S/L, you could then scale it back and see about boosting other Res. - I'm not sold on the idea of picking Energy Torrent and Laser Beam Eyes. The goal should be to get your ST and AoE attack chains down to three powers for each. I'm willing to accept Spin as part of the ST attach chain if need be. - You can swap in Maneuvers and Combat Jumping, use those as spots to shift over the LotG: + 7.5% Recharge and create further slotting for other powers. It would give you a 5th slot the LotG IO.

I only take Hover if I take Fly. I take CJ as a late pick for the LotG mule and added combat movement. My willingness to play at range or melee really depends on the powers. Emp/rad is pretty easy to play at range.

Got on a Posi II last night. Two support characters. One player asks who is the healer. The Storm player speaks up. The one player asks if they need to switch to their healer. I say no. I eventually mentioned that we had a character with Pain. They still chatter on. We go through the TF well enough. No team wipes. Only 5 deaths*. Pretty typical Posi type of play. I just find it interesting just how undervalued Pain was. * I was two of the deaths. One happened since for some reason my Inspir window wasn't open at the time. Another was do to me being a Blaster, and I'll never not play aggressive. Blasters can take alpha, right? 😆 I don't have an answer to the OP, I do think both are worth looking into. I have a Level 22 Thermal/fire I rerolled to Thermal/sonic. While I have a build for it, I'm currently going with version 3 while ignoring the other versions I have thought about using after I figured out the third one. At this point, it is more about getting it to 50 and then deciding on the tweaks. I really should look into Pain at some point and roll one.

Horribly late but no one answered. You need to factor in why this is true, but Brutes were the widely most played AT due to farms. That might be different in this day and age with Tanker AoEs being reworked. Fire/kin Controllers were also insanely popular for likely the same reasons. Emp, I believe, was the run away winner for Defs with Kin being high as well. My guess is people still do the whole, "We need a healer" thing because that happened last night on a team with already having a person with Pain. I do feel like much of popularity of sets were due to more about the meta of things versus how good a set is. Source, there was a thread from 2020, I believe, which broken down the data in great details in terms of powersets as well. Despite repeated responses to update said data, there never has been any further update. The thread had been pinned at the top of the General forum, IIRC, but had been unpinned when it essentially became a place for people to ask for an update.

(Ohio State University has entered the chat) For those unaware, they trademarked THE.

Yeah, that's an easy report.

Reunion is my second home as I was looking to get back the name for one of my characters who had to change it due to a server move, and Reunion was the only server where it was available. The added XP makes it a good place to duo box as well. I'll likely spend some more time there getting on teams.

Seeds does damage via the AoE Confuse. Considering you can even proc it on top of that, and mobs can melt in short order. It has been regarded as Top 3 for damage for some time. Ill and Fire being the others. Something to think about, make a Earth/storm Controller and then a Plant Dom as Seeds can work on bosses with Domination running. You can essentially walk up to any mob and confuse it 'all' with a click.

If the noise after entering the zone isn't enough of an indicator, that's on you.

And I have so little desire to create a second build just for starred content.

Unfortunately, with the way things get blitzed in the game, even new content, it further reminds me of why I avoid this type of content. I have a couple times done TFs and it felt like I got TPed around and then the next thing I know we are done and people are saying 'Thanks,' and I'm left going, "What the hell just happened?" Sure, doing them again and learning how to do them would help. The problem is the things are so unfun I don't feel like doing them again anyway.

It does seem weird to have the more exotic damage types having for Res than S/L which is going to be more common. I feel like I could name most of the mobs who do Cold. Even if not true, my point remains in that Cold really isn't used that much across mobs as a whole.

Soloing for Level 1? Earth will output lower damage. Grav will be fine. Plant will be the stronger of the three. In terms of group play? Any. Really. In the day and ago of teams which seem to blow through tons of content, any. I had a Earth/storm on live. I'm still not sure in the day and age of where I used common IOs how I maintained End at a decent enough level to tolerate it because Storm is an End bar destroyer if you want it to be. But, my freaking word, it is an absolute control beast. I had a team literally knowing whatever they tried to do I could maintain it, see the group splitting three ways. Earth/storm was the build I used as revenge in the 30 Fir Bolg mission in Croatoa. Now that IO sets exists and I have gotten used to doing builds, it is one of the only builds from Live I have been tempted to redo, The argument could be made it has too much control. In the day and age of steamrolling, I can concede seeing the point. Honestly, you could do +4/x8 teams with intentionally having fewer people join and be way more than fine. You will be an absolute control god while doing some damage due to procs. I have a Plant/storm at 50. I need to get it a build because there's just so little downside to the build as an overall Controller. Storm backed by a solid control/damage set just adds to it. Again, if you are soloing at Level 1, I would deem this to be the better pick. I leveled it using common IOs. I don't recommend that. At least do the typical Stamina/Health IO slotting. I had a Grav/ta in the 30s. Grav is fine as a Controller set. Wormhole is about the only thing special about it. As a hater of long animations, I find the ridiculously fun but far too damn long animation of Propel not worth taking. TL; DR. My head says Plant. My heart says Earth.

Habashy, DFB, Hollows, Posi. That's my typical pathway. I remember doing Perez Park back on Live. Just navigating that forest was a mess.

It could simply be someone who hasn't touched a PC in a while as they are off doing other things. As someone who works in IT, I sure do wish I had that ability at times.

This essentially describes the latest Deadpool movie.

I haven't looked at the latest build, but it doesn't seem like this was addressed. RoP has a long recharge which can't be altered. It's helpful to rotate it with Melee or use the Alpha to boost Res numbers as well. I would rather go Tough + Weave + Epic Armor than work in RoP. I like RoP on Def based melee characters who already are getting their armor in their primary or secondary. Sonic can offer the ability to have rather high Res across the board if you build for it.

As someone who solos x8 a lot, no. Blues and Greens for understandable reasons drop the most.

3. Mission length. People can hop in and out quickly. Sure, I solo on a higher diff setting and thus missions will take longer, but I don't think it is unreasonable to say a radio mission can be blown through in 5-10 minutes. I have soloed content missions which took 30-45 minutes easily. The second to last mission in Johnny Sonata's arc has so many waves of ambushes. So freaking many and the bosses rez. You get at most 3 waves of ambushes in a radio mission. For my boredom factor, radio missions all use the same template for the map instances to where I feel like I could complete some of them blind. I've literally looked down a hallway and went, "I know what the rest of that looks like."

I know it goes against the current system, but it would have been nice if you talked to an out leveled contact, they simply let you know their range, and then you played their missions exempted. FTR, I vastly solo with doing story arcs as the content is harder, more engaging, and offers things like unique maps. The only thing more mind-numbing than farms is radio missions which seems to be the overwhelming thing to do on teams outside of TFs.

Things from the same source don't stack.

FYI, if you use the same -Res proc in a build and they all trigger, they don't stack. They would at best lengthen how long the -Res lasts. Infrigidate and Benumb need Acc to hit. I can see you dumped a bunch of influ into a build, but I'm not sure what you are building for. I don't see the point of 6-slotting Fire Blast with Apoc. Sure, it gives you 5% Def to Psionic, but you aren't building for Def anyway. You don't even have either of the +3% Def IOs. You can swap out/remove the slot for damage and still be more than fine. You skipped the shields so I lean on the idea it is a solo build, but your Def/Res numbers aren't much to write home about. I would 2-slot Power Transfer in Stamina with the Heal Self proc while leaving the PS proc. SS and Mystic Flight seems a bit weird. Having 8 pts. of KB protection should be fine.

Regen and EA since you can't get them on a Tanker. 😆 The bigger AoEs for the damage auras looks to win out on a Tanker versus a Brute, but hell if I'm not having fun on my Axe/stone. For melee sets, it gets harder. Savage could be in the conversation since it is so DoT based. It might overtake the bigger AoEs of a Tanker and the fact that Stalkers get a legit ST heavy hitter out of it, but DoT isn't really what a Stalker wants as it wants high burst damage.

A group mezz would still work. Not saying it was taken at that point, and yellow inspirs likely needed, but it can be an option. I've seen a Dom flip Domination and that was pretty much it.