bartwart

Maybe you don't need extra knockback for Energy Torrent. It's a preference thing, but sometimes it's fun to wreck a group, especially an ambush. I'm on Excelsior too, so maybe the angry tells were just because of the way i played. I also had Storm, and was using gale and hurricane all the time, so there's that.

Knockback is a great damage mitigator, don't forget that, so it can definitely fit within a defensive regime. However, I do think the knockback to knockdown IO makes sense for the AOEs. For the CONE engy power (forget the name) consider slotting it for EXTRA knockback....that gives you a nice power for moving mobs where you want them to be. For the single target powers, I wouldn't worry about the knockback...just slot with range damage IOs like you would normally do. And while playing in PUGs, don't over think it. Do what you feel is necessary. However, you can expect to get the tells asking you to control the knockback, no matter how conscientious you are, mostly from melee types and the occasional warshade. You can handle that however you want, but personally I just troll them back. I had a description explaining I was going to do a lot of knock back and I don't care what you think, and for those folks that failed to read my bio before complaining, I just trolled them back. Despite all of this, I was a tad bit conscientious about my knock back....I just get tired of all the tells, so trolling them back is part of the fun.

Mind doesn't need a AOE immob . Terrorize is much better than AOE immob. It's essentially like an AOE immob stacked with a minus recharge effect. It's almost as good as an AOE hold, but arguably better since it has a much faster recharge rate. You could easily have a Mind powerhouse that skips the Total Domination and Mass Sleep powers altogether.

And that's why you keep whirlwind around. When the tank starts getting all prima dona, let loose with whirlwind right in the middle of his mobs

Agree on mind/time. Time is great on with any set. The thing that really annoys me is how resistant bosses and higher are to control effects. But Time Slow + Time Stop will instantly hold a boss, which is welcome by any primary. You'd still have issues with EBs and AVs.

No problem, brother Dom!

Seems like it might be a good power for PVP when you're on discord and can voice chat with your team. But yeah, in PVE whenever someone activates a phase shift or dimensional shift, you don't realize it right away and start blowing your powers on mobs you can't touch. Hopefully your teammates realize what's going on and adjust accordingly, but usually a few don't understand.

Consider mind/time. Personally, mind is easily my favorite controller or dom primary just because I love confusion and terrify so much. Time is a great compliment and very controllery with slows and holds of its own (time slow + time stop will instantly hold a boss). Mind has a great single target attack chain with the mesmerize, levitate, and dominate. Oedipus tex has a great post about a Mind/time build you should check out. It's a beast solo or in groups.

I'm with OP. I also started a Grav/Time a few days ago, but gave up on it after hitting about 15, and rerolled it as a mind/time. Grav/ feels lackluster at low levels, and for me low level play is just as, if not more so, important than late game play. I've actually had this problem with Grav/ over the years. I tried so many times to get into it, but I just can't wait until level 26 to finally get a signature power.

I run a storm/nrg defender King of Diamonds and I put it right in my description that i'm going to be doing a lot of knock back and I don't care what you think. Out of respect for teammates that may not want to deal with it, they can leave or kick me from the team. But I WILL have my knockback fun. So far I haven't been kicked from a team, but its just a matter of time. However, I've had plenty of teammates quit out of frustration. I've even had teammates try to reason with me, to which I just reply back with a ~hilarious~ comment. Some teammates thinks its great. Other hate it. Other do not care. You also find out that there's a large cadre of knockback lovers in the closet, too afraid to annoy their teammates, but secretly admiring what I'm doing. Some just tolerate it or try to cope by splitting off from me to mobs I'm not focused on. I was on a 3 storm defender team one time by chance and it was glorious fun.

Great analysis. I'd say if OP were looking to hit a high damage cap, something like a fire/kin corruptor would the the right choice. Though I wonder if something like a sonic/kin would be even better, since it combines -res with +damage.

Solo, a defender gets a 30% damage buff so its base damage is actually closer to 0.85.

Consider Pain domination as a defender primary, and pair it with Sonic secondary. If you truly want to play solo and never ever team up, there are only a few powers in Pain dom you need to take: Nullify Pain, Soothing Aura, World of Pain, and Anguishing cry. You get two self-heals, and nice self resist/damage/to-hit buff. Plus, Anguishing Cry synergizes well /sonic's resist debuf. In the late game, you open up with anguishing cry -> nuke. Sonic's nuke puts you in melee range anyway. Super Speed + Stealth can get you into the middle of the mob before they even know what hit them. And since you're taking so few primary powers, it frees you up to taking all sorts of secondary powers sooner. Of course, this concept would also work with a sonic/pain corruptor.

I've run a Arch blaster up to 50 and now I'm leveling an nrg/ up to 50, and the differences in their nuke couldn't be more stark. Back on live, Rain of Arrows had a longer cast time, but no crash, which was thought to balance it considering other nukes crashed. Now that no nukes crash, Rain of Arrows' long cast time needs to be shortened...a lot, to bring it in line with the other nuke powers that don't crash.

I'd reslot meltdown to just have two rech-redux 50+5s. The extra resist is over kill. Stock will give you a 25% boost, which will probably put you at the resist cap anyway, so any extra resist will just be a waste. I use meltdown just as a damage booster

War Mace is amazing and goes with everything.

Yeah! Weird in a thread about nrg I gush over cross punch and spring attack. The energy set as a whole underperfoms IMO, but there's a way to suppliment it with Spring Attack and the Fighting Pool to have a really awesome attack rotation. Putting aside nrg for a moment, Spring Attack is that good and can probably go into a lot of other set rotations, not just for nrg brutes. Back to NRG as a set. Here's the reasoning for skipping a few powers in NRG and supplementing with the Fighting pool. First, Total Focus is meh, and arguably a liability in your attack chain, given that mobs die so fast, it has a high activation cost, cast time, and is single target only....it really needs to be reworked so that its more like thunderstrike or tremor. So that said, Total Focus is skipable. Then looking at the first two powers in NRG: Barrage and Energy Punch...skip one of those. So with that power, along with Total Focus, you have two powers in the nrg set you know you're going to skip. You can substitute those two power with boxing and kick from the fighting pool. Now all you need is to find a good opportunity to slot in cross punch, and the synergy mechanic between those 3 powers gives each a 30% bonus to damage from them plus a special effect. Once you have those plus the afore mentioned spring attack (make sure to slot it with enough recharge so that its up about every 1 minute), here's how the encounters go: 1) Open up with Spring Attack and Whirling Fists 2) Cycle through a regular attack chain of cross punch, bone smasher, your tier 1 or tier 2 power...which ever you kept, kick, and if nothing else in your rotation has recharged yet, activate boxing. The attack order may vary. Rinse repeat EDIT: Energy Transfer, from what I hear, might also be a skippable power, but I'll haven't reached level 32 yet.

I'm leveling an nrg/inv brute right now and have some opinions on it. Currently I"m at level 29. Regarding Total Focus, its very situational. The gentleman above is correct in that by the time you finished casting the power, the mob is dead. Coupled with the fact that its single target only and has a high activation cost, and you see how situational it really is. By comparison, Thunderstrike and Tremor have some AOE component, so even if your original mob dies, chances are you'll still damage his buddies. I only occasionally use Total Focus in group content, but its not part of my regular attack chain. In fact, I'm thinking respecing out of it and adding another power instead from one of the tertiary pools. Regarding the lack of AOE in the NRG set, I took Spring Attack from the Jumping Pool (since I usually take super jump as my travel power anyway), and love the results. With SOs, I 6 slot it: 2 accuracies, 2 damages, and 2 recharges), and its usually up every mob encounter and is a great opener. I open with Spring Attack -> Whirling Hands before entering into my usually attack rotation. I also have Spring Attack on my Earth/Earth dom who is by the nature of /Earth a melee character, and I love that power on him. I had initially experiemented with taking Cross Punch from the Fighting pool, but respec'd out of it when I hit 20. I'm thinking about respecing back into it. I actually liked Cross Punch a lot (much better than Total Focus), but at low levels its a big sacrifice to be able to get. There's a synergy with the fighting pool where if you get boxing, kick, and crosspunch, each of those powers gains 30% extra damage. Crosspunch smacks hard and has a modest cone angle.

I have a fire/rad. I like rad because it helps your teammates land their hits, which is important in the early game but not so much the late game when everyone is SO'd and IO'd up.

I'm leveling a earth/earth dom right now and i'm loving it. Are there any other skippable powers in Earth control? Is Animate Stone worth getting?

I played CO at launch, and tried it out a few times over the years, but really gave it another good try after CoX died. I have strong opinions about CO. At its core its a terrible game, and here's why: 1) Stories are utter garbage. It like the head writer was trying to write for a super hero parady game. Everytime you tried to accomplish anything, it constantly reminded you what a big joke this whole thing was. 2) Reward system encouraged inter-player strife. I'm not a fan of the need or greed system, nor am I a fan of "rare bosses" that spawn to drop some retarded loot, as it only encourages players to engage in negative confrontational behavior with each other. 3) Builds were all about tank/DPS/heal. Crowd Control and other exotic defense mechanisms were non-existent. 4) Open build system encouraged Franken Builds, which in a way are not unlike what we have with Sentinels in this game. It'd be like if 90% of the player base on homecoming ran around as Sentinels. Thankfully, that is not the case in homecoming. 5) The stat system was weird and obtuse, and basically rubbed in your face that this was a tank/dps/heal game. 6) It was like someone said to themselves "You know what would be cool? What if we made a super hero WoW clone?" This isn't knock on WoW. I personally don't like WoW, but I respect that other people do like it. I don't see how anyone can make game that out-WoWs WoW, and history has proven out that no one can out-WoW WoW. Take a watered-down WoW and put a super hero skin on it, which is essentially what CO is and....no one cares! 7) Bugged Alerts. To me the final straw, after giving CO another try, was getting into an Alert (which others whom I assume were also CoH refugees) and the mission was bugged! The mission we were on was broken, we tried all sorts of things to get around the bug, but we coudn't, so we had to abandon the Alert. That was the final straw for me and CO.