Without_Pause

I'm not having those be of natural origin.

Destiny can be a huge patch for some builds, see Rebirth on a build without a heal. My only qualm with Judgement is theme wise for natural characters.

I only did a couple Emps and none to 50, but the best feeling one was Ill/emp. It has built in invis and a Confuse so it will generate a low amount of aggro and both sets are fueled by recharge. Sonic is one of the few secondaries on a Defender which to me felt impactful. A couple blasts and you can see a target start taking a bit more damage. Dark is obviously good with its debuffs as well and has solid AoE.

I accept EM is a better performer than StJ. StJ is best on a Stalker regardless. To me it is more about flow. Case in point, I was on my Dark/staff Tank tonight and died twice due to being stuck in an 2.57 second cast time animation which prevented me from using my heal. Whirling Hands: 2.5 second cast time Total Focus: 2.53 second cast time Spinning Strike: 1.8 second cast time. Crushing Uppercut: second 2.17 cast time EM does more damage as it should. Again, it is about the flow to me and a big reason why I took Claws to 50 twice and no, I don't care for Eviscerate. I skipped the T1 on my EM scrapper and yeah, it was a bit annoying waiting until 32 to have a decent ST attack chain. Also note StJ is just going to feel better paired with a click heavy armor set.

What about non-SS sets? I wouldn't mind some sort of ATO rework for brutes as the +fury one seems a bit meh. Stalker, Scrapper, and Tanks all got really good ATOs. While this goes beyond just Brutes, getting a Fort to near completion has really made me think about what a build can handle. I think any new brute build outside of that will likely be StJ with something which promotes a blender style build. Rad has the best top end in that it has +recharge and damage, but it has no mitigation in terms of -recharge as where Elec does. EA doesn't add damage, but it has -recharge def built in due to being def based and has a solid -recharge to mobs. I'm about tapped in terms of doing EA right now with one 50 and two others being leveled. I finished DA with my Fort, so I need to bet back to my Rad/bio and start pushing it to see it finish off the area as well. So far that's doing well as a build.

Speed is less of an issue if the damage was there, but it isn't.

Defender ATOs also work well with Sonic/sonic. Grab a def based epic armor and you'll have a rather tanky Defender.

I go against conventional wisdom when it comes to Lore partly because it is just really odd for a Stalker, as an example, to be going around with massive sized pets.

+1. The animation times on the ST attacks are not kind, but Rad is top tier for AoE. Shield/rad would be my pick for a min/max Tank. I would lean more towards doing one, but I have the Scrapper version, and I'm kind of done with Rad's animations in terms of wanting to level another one. Options not mentioned, Shield with Elec or Savage as both give you tele nukes although both are lacking in ST damage. I still think Savage is what Claws should have been. I made a Rad/bio Brute and that certainly makes me wonder what a Tank version would be like because it is going to pump out a lot of orange numbers. Any tank with two damage auras is going to wreck things. Balanced versus AoE heavy, but the smoothest set due to animation times unless I missed something is StJ. The more I play other sets the more I want to play StJ instead. I find EM more on the good side than fun, but Dark/em would be great for stacked stuns. Don't get me wrong, EM's ST damage is incredibly good maybe too good, but any time you have to deal with TF's animation time it raises an issue for me in the fun factor.

I have been thinking about using it with Thermal. I currently have a lowbie with Fire, but Fire feels weakest on a defender. I'm not saying it is bad on a defender. I'm saying at least Corrs and Blasters get better versions of it. I just need to see some animations so I can figure out how much I would like the set.

(raises hand) Some of us like that hectic playstyle. If my current laptop didn't offer up screen shot style gameplay in certain cases, I would still be playing more Kin.

Why? Did Diantane post again?

Melee with some blats and some armor would also be very Widow like. They are as awesome as they are unplayed unfortunately.

Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers.

You can get Athletic Run going at a good enough rate to not really need SS. I'm borderline at skipping a travel power while using Athletic Run + CJ/Hover as needed and grabbing a flight power, see Hover Disk, at the P2W. It partly depends if I'm okay with not using a travel power to get something like a Resist Slow IO or +mag to KB IO.

FYI, based on the HC stats from March 2020, Fire/kins are still way more popular than any other combo, 2,459 versus Ill/rad at 973. Dark/dark is #3 with 594 so we are talking Fire/kins being roughly 4x as popular as the #3 combo. You just might not see them being played since they are more rolled to aid in farming these days. I honestly don't look at people's powersets they use on their controllers all that much.

The changes seem to be negative towards PvP, and to be honest, I don't care about that aspect. I like the set, but I'm honestly playing it due to the feel. I fear it will end up being lackluster in the end. I was hoping changes to it would make it better.

Shield/dark would be on a short list of builds you could stick in a mission and know it wouldn't face plant regardless of the mobs.

I haven't had the time to look into getting on beta, but has anybody looked at the Savage changes to give feedback? Is Hemo worth taking?

You certainly have the time to.

I would add Claws/rad since it adds recharge and damage. I'm still working on a rad build to see how much I like it in the end though.

StJ is way in the lead in terms of fun for me, but I did it on a Stalker. I got WP and SR to 50 although the WP on a Brute. I need to try out Nin at some point. WP tends to win by default as I don't like click mezzes, but SR is still great. If I didn't already have a level 50 Stalker version, I would do StJ/ea in a heartbeat in terms of pure fun.

I got a SS/elec up to 42 and realized just how boring SS is. Foot Stomp is amazing, but... I decided to keep the build around and maybe come back to it.

Said elsewhere and a hill I'm willing to die on, but animations over 2 seconds shouldn't be a thing. I lose count how often a Rad melee attack goes overused. Far more of a good set due to its AoEs versus a fun one. StJ is built for regen due to its animations. Longest animation has a cast time of 2.17 seconds and its CU. Not even the AoEs go 2 seconds.

I tend to ask in LFG as I want to see if anything is already out there. I have a lowbie set up for the FF arc, so I'll lead people through that.