Microcosm

FYI, waterspout doesn't need kb to kd. It does either kd or ku, I don't remember, but regardless it works as-is. I take waterspout and hibernate on any stalker or scrapper that I can. Waterspout does good damage against a single target or a clumped group and accepts two -res procs. Hibernate is possibly the safest "oh sh*t" button in game because it phases you while healing you and giving end recovery. The phase also allows you to shake off whatever debuffs might have gotten you in trouble. It's even more fun on stalkers because you pop out of hibernate back in hidden status for a crit.

You can monitor Damage bonus in the combat attributes. Keep in mind this doesn't include the percent increase from your enhancements, so add another whatever % to the number you see there.

It dos a 0.67 KB. KB less than 1 will cause a knockdown, unless facing something weak to knockback (like OG clockwork).

Very true words, AIB. I think that also points to building defense as a good goal, because it simultaneously addresses several of these. For those willing to put in obscene amounts of inf though, we can take advantage of hot swapping builds with the /selectbuild n command now available. It puts all abilities on cool down, but can be judiciously used I think. Haijinx, that is definitely a QOL improvement that needed to happen but never did. Maybe we'll get there with the new team. What I tend to do now is build for defense without toggles, though I know others end up just dropping the forms which is sad. It makes no sense to have to retoggle after form switching, but that's a design flaw really. Demon Shell, I hear you and it seems like the way to deal with that is to carry extra purple insps when heading into defense debuff content. I assume you mean defense debuffs, but if you mean resist debuffs khelds actually do a bit better than others cause we can build past the resist caps as a cushion fairly easily. But I'm also not aware of any pure resist based set that gets defense debuffs resistance, so we aren't really alone there. Other option on the defense side (though a short duration one) is to pick up the defense accolade. I think I'll add this to the list though.

Note, this post is about UberKheld-World Problems. I'd like to talk about the weaknesses we can have in the top-end builds we have made or plan to make. Everything is still relevant to lower level or non-maxed builds, but the point of this post is to discuss high-end builds facing the most difficult of situations. Most of the people posting in this subsection should be aware of the monstrous survival rates and excellent damage for 99% of content. So what about that 1% of times where conditions just aren't ideal for a Kheldian? To that end, I want to avoid the "mez/kill them before they kill you" argument, which holds for the 99% of situations but maybe not for that 1%. I'll start below but please contribute if I missed a problem or solution or you just disagree. Mez This one's been talked about before quite a bit, and it applies more to Shades than PBs thanks to light form. We've got several options, including Dwarf form (though this locks you to a couple of powers only), Break Free inspiration combination, Clarion, or building for enough defense to avoid the mez altogether. You might try for s/l softcap, or attempt to get ~32.5 positional defenses and use a small luck to finish the job. Building those defenses will be a bit of a theme here, and is nice in general as it makes you even more survivable. End Drain End drain can be a bummer, and we have 0 protection against it. Enemies may not kill you if they drain you because of the nature of Eclipse/Light Form, but it's kind of hard to fight back if you get drained. Again, I'm not talking about that one sapper in the crowd we can kill or mez, but the +4/x8 clockwork shooting electric blasts at you, or huge groups of carnies you just melted. There are no special IOs or bonuses that can solve this one, so what we have left is building for defense, either s/l/e (covers those electric blasts which are frequent end drain offenders) or positionals. Slow/-Rech Unlike other armor sets, Khelds depend a lot on recharge to get that t9 perma. You can again build for defense, but there are those times this won't work all that well. I'm thinking mainly of a pack of OG Knives of Artemis all dropping caltrops. If you haven't experienced this on a character with no -rech protection and one with large -rech protection, you should go treat yourself 😉 We do now have the winter IO sets, with which it's possible to build for >100% -recharge resistance. Single Target Damage Khelds can do fantastic AoE damage, some of the best. Single target damage, not so much. They can definitely do adequate st damage given their other abilities, but it's not the best in the world. For this one, using Procs can make a good difference, especially for PBs who are already self-contained with their endurance issues and can focus on adding more procs and less end-redux. Warshades' end recovery comes from defeated bodies, which... don't always exist when hitting a single hard target, especially if you've got pets around clearing out those mobs early in the fight. A large part of a Warshades' damage can come from those pets though, so keeping them alive for the big single target encounter is important (see below). Psi (PBs) PBs have a psi whole in Light Form, which WSs do not. We know this. I think we've also seen all sorts of build that emphasize adding psi protection through IOs which can get really high values there. Building for defense can help as well, though there are a small handful of enemy psi attacks that aren't typed with a position. Keeping Pets alive (WS) This is a big one for high-end content. WS pets provide a lot of our damage, partially just because you can keep three out with high recharge. But all that damage is useless if the pets are killed. These little guys like to fly in the face of enemies, probably closing to melee because they are waiting for one of their ranged powers to recharge and this is what the AI generally does. So the options we have are try to get some defense into them via maneuvers/grant invis/pet defense IOs, using Dwarf taunt or pool power taunt to keep focus off of them, or using the Hybrid toggle for taunt. You won't be able to get significant defense into them, unfortunately, and slots on the pets are already super tight. Using Dwarf taunt locks you into Dwarf for the AV fight (not necessarily a problem), but the taunts and Hybrid taunt won't protect them from AoEs from that big target. What seems like the best option is to combine taunting with constant position changing to keep distance between you and fluffies to avoid AoEs. Doesn't work for pylons and will lower your own dps a bit from all the repositioning. Thoughts? What would you like to add?

I wasn't part of that, but I do remember the name Iron Alex. Welcome back!

Also free purchase of Boosters/Catalysts at merit vendors is gone.

I respeced into Cross Punch on the PB and tried again. Using order of Enflame > Photon Seekers > RStrike > IStrike > RStrike > GBlast > Cross Punch I got the below DPS: 275 301 271 272 I also tried it taking IStrike completely out of the chain, because I felt like the long animation was hurting me (ironic in a proc build) and the more +rech from more frequent Cross Punch would help. So the new chain of Enlfame > Photon Seekers >RStrike > Cross Punch > GBlast, which also happens to be the chain I've been using on live (without all the procs though): 313 316 313 I think we have a winner there. The extra recharge and extra -res proc from Cross Punch really helps I guess. If I also had another of the fighting pool powers the extra Synergy bonus would increase that a tiny bit more. I still don't think this is a build path for a playable PB in normal content, however it would do very nicely for a second build to switch to right before hitting an AV.

Are you talking about PB or WS? If you want the tankiest dwarf you can get, just make sure to get enough recharge to pop down to human and use Light Form or Eclipse. That will combine with Dwarf to cap your resistance generally. In terms of slots, best bet is to use a feature of Mids hero designer under Window > Set Bonus Finder and find what gives you the best numbers for what you want. If it's just for muling, I don't think it probably matters what power you pick to do so, just whatever is most efficient with the IOs. The Winter IOs give a lot of defense in particular. For procs, are you familiar with the proc per minute stuff? It's a change that hadn't quite made it to live when the game shut down, but basically procs have an increased chance of firing based on the recharge time of the power and it's activation time. Slotting recharge into a power will lower its proc's ability to fire, but global recharge (like from Hasten) will not. Also, AoE's complicate matters by reducing chances based on radius. Take a look at your dwarf powers in Mids with procs in them and with regular damage IOs in them and compare the difference.

Quite possibly. It does depend some on how many force feedbacks you use to try to keep it up as much as possible. I had one nucleolus and all the rest procs of some sort in Rstrike, Istrike, and Gleaming Blast. I can try to fit in Cross Punch and see what happens. It's funny to me that IStrike is still worse than Rstrike procced out. It's also not really relevant to what I would want to play on a PB, because it uses no kb to kd enhancements since that's not needed against a pylon/AV.

Procced out a Peacebringer, thinking I could leverage its kb for force feedback, -def for achilles and the hold procs in IStrike. Same as usual, T4 Musc Core, T4 Degen Core, T4 Pyronic Core, T4 Ageless Core, T4 Assault Core (not toggled). Priority is Photon Seekers > Enflame > RStrike > IStrike > Gleaming Blast > Dawn Strike DPS: 271 272 258 Pretty disappointed in that after the tank's dps. However, the pb is sturdier than the tank, so I really shouldn't be, I was just hoping there would be some magic awesomesauce for pbs. I think maybe adding in Cross Punch with the -res and another purple proc might help, given it can only normally do the achilles -res unlike the tank and sentinel.

Only on test server unless that fix made it. I believe they made them functionally the same as scrappers/blasters.

I'll add that you don't have any -res procs anywhere, which could help. Rstrike is your best dpa for single targets, so make sure you prioritize that and not IStrike. You might want to look to the Fighting pool to get to Cross Punch, which, if you take both Boxing and Kick on the way, is actually pretty good damage. I use Rstrike > Gleaming Blast > Cross Punch on my PB, and Photon Seekers whenever they're up. I'd definitely swap your slotting on Glinting Eye and Gleaming Blast (though putting a full set like that in Glinting Eye hurts a bit), and get the Apocalypse proc in there.

Going to monologue a bit, but there are some juicy times at the bottom... I was pretty pleased with the procced-out dp sentinel I made, and started thinking if there was another hidden gem somewhere on which I could use similar tricks. There are a few things to that sentinel that initially drew me to the combo besides just wanting a pistols character that worked: 1) High acc and some -def meant it didn't have to worry about slotting acc as much 2) DP obviously takes a bunch of procs, but importantly multiple Force Feedbacks for +recharge that doesn't affect proc rates 3) DP can slot 2 different kinds of -res procs in the chains I used 3) /Energy also adds free +recharge 4) /Energy easily softcaps without much outside of it 5) /Energy makes it easy to get 5 LotGs 6) /Energy makes slotting for -end less important 7) -res in Opportunity So I wanted to see if I could make a monster out of another low-damage character, and went hunting for a tanker. (I've never gotten a tanker past the teens because the low damage, high team-support thing is just not me). /Energy, pretty much half of my plan there, didn't exist. So I went with /Electric which still has the +rech and recovery help from Energize but lacks defense. For secondary, I chose Broadsword, partially because it could do all of the same things listed for DP above, but also because it's T1 (which is desirable for tankers because it adds -res to the target) oddly has a higher recharge than others and therefore a better proc rate. It also has Parry to give some defense to Electric's resistance. Priority order for this guy goes Enflame > Gloom > Head Splitter > Disembowel > Hack. Build up and Pyronic are also executed as they come up. Caveats: 1) I did end up having to use Ageless, which I don't like, part way through these fights because I've got more toggles than the sentinel and lack the Defensive Opportunity for +recovery. I will probably try to change the build to get rid of this need so I can run Rebirth. 2) Unlike the Sentinel build, this doesn't have a ton of AoE (skipped Slice and have nothing from Epic Pool). However it does have a damage aura. 3) It's also not full-bore survival, which I don't like since it's a tank. However, it is softcapped to melee/lethal with Parry and has resistances and heals. I had to worry much less about the drop ship than on the Sentinel. 4) I made sure I had taunt because realistically I wouldn't skip that, but I could really use that power slot... Incarnates setup just like the Sentinel: T4 Musc Core, T4 Degen Core, T4 Ageless Core, T4 Assault Core (not toggled) DPS: 372 340 363 357 343 365 367 342 After the first run I thought it was a mistake... This is stronger than my DB/Elec Scrapper on live.

Alright, final set of testing for the DP/Ene/Psi, for real this time. Switched to Degen Core at some point, haven't noticed any difference really vs Radial. Respecced back into Dual Wield, but kept Suppressive and Assault, no Ageless and Hybrid not toggled: 273 277 (Sustain is much better) Just for kicks, without using Enflame: 281 274 Other kicks, Hybrid and Ageless on: 329 Then, on a whim, replaced Suppressive with Piercing Rounds (so essentially my original build but plus Assault), and changed the chain to using Piercing Rounds instead of Dual Wield except when Opportunity was up (no Ageless/Hybrid again): 299 290 281 313 So that's the best so far... Could be the resistance debuff from Piercing Rounds proc. Could also be the fact I moved Decimation back to Dominate instead of in Suppressive, though I had it in their originally when I was using Dual Wield instead of Piercing.

I respecced out of Dual Wield and Piercing Rounds and into Pistols and Suppressive Fire, and added Assault. The sustain definitely feels worse by a lot. I got two runs without Ageless, but I was close to bottom on endurance. w/o Ageless: 270 300 w/ Ageless: 309 281 270 Hitting right around the 300 mark with DP feels pretty good though. However, I think I'll stick with the first version of the build on live.

Thanks, the version of mids I have is showing any recharge as reducing the damage of the procs, so I wasn't sure about Ageless. I don't actually need it, though it would be nice to ensure things are recharged instead of having a couple lags due to FF proc not firing. I actually haven't slotted end redux except a little by chance in Executioner's Shot. Between the end discount of Energize and the Defensive Opportunity i haven't needed it. I knew this would hinge on Mind Probe and Dominate, so I needed two attacks to go with that and chose Executioner and Dual Wield over Suppressive Fire for the FF procs in both, Achilles in Executioner and Opportunity from Dual Wield. If I had room for one more procced out power, I could rotate Suppressive in and only use Dual Wield for triggering Opportunity, which would squeeze just a bit more damage out at the expense of some FF firings. I might swap out an AoE for Suppressive on test and try it, but on live I think I'd prefer to have the AoEs.

So I wanted to see what all the commotion was about with the PPM stuff and decided to make a DP/Ene proc sentinel on test. (All T4) Alpha: Musculature core Interface: Degen radial Hybrid: Assault core (not toggled) Judgement: Pyronic core (no Destiny or Lore, wasn't sure if Ageless would mess up the PPM stuff like Spiritual does, so just didn't use anything) DPS: 263/282/266 I also had a couple runs where I royally screwed stuff up and got around 240 dps. This is my first sentinel, and my first dual pistols... and my first /energy aura. I was hoping it would get a little closer to 300 dps, but I'm comfortable with what I got. I've got a full ranged attack chain with that and softcapped defenses with some resists and, of course, Energize. Attack "chain" isn't really a chain because it depends on what's recharged, which depends on if force feedback has been firing or not, but goes in priority order like so: Enflame>Dominate>Mind Probe>Executioner's Shot>Dual Wield. If magically none of those was recharged and I didn't need to use Energize or something I would toss in Piercing Rounds, but I only did that on one run. Might do some more tests with Piercing Rounds instead of Dual Pistols (until opportunity lights up).

Go find null the full in pocket D and ask it to turn that off. It's a seagull sitting on a truck near the villain entrance.

Dual blades is actually pretty strong dps. In terms of stalker or scrapper or brute, stalker will do better single target damage because of AS, and the other two better AoE. Between scrapper and brute, the scrapper is much better because of the constant +damage of blinding feint is more impactful on scrappers. For your other questions, it depends very much on what you want to invest. If you want to go super route, you'll need Sr or Elec for the +rech, and elec will be the stronger if you can softcap s/l as well. If you want to go lower investment, Sr is still good as are pretty much most of the sets you listed. I might skip dark just because of how end heavy it is. What combos to take is up to you, but at the very highest end you don't use the combos for single target damage, so keep that in mind.

Warshade. Different but also super powerful with investment. Otherwise, ya, I have to find specific combos that work really well in other ATs. Or, if you want a very different change of pace such that you won't compare it to your PB, try a MM.

Honestly I rather like it. You can take sets that are easier to level but don't have as high a top end (example /nin, which is one of my favorites), or you can push through with a set like electric and get finally rewarded with a super durable set that also increases your damage output via its aura and +rech.

What Hopeling said. It's a very good set once you invest in it (imo one of the top), but the trade-off is it can be hard to level.

I have it slotted in Sky Splitter, which I very rarely use because it's animation is long and the best chain for staff doesn't include SS. I also almost never see this proc fire, so I've been reading this thread thinking "what the heck!?" I think you are on to something; using the attack it's slotted in may allow other attacks to proc it for a time.

"Trained Boxing" just means you already have Boxing from the pool. Having it increases the damage, and so does having Kick. To find out what the damage actually does, honestly I'd recommend making a character with your given class quickly on the Test server and trying it out. Nothing in the in-game info says the actual damage because of its special synergy so it's hard to tell. It probably isn't worthwhile on a Scrapper that already has good attacks, but who knows. Edit: In terms of "vs Shadow Maul", I highly doubt Cross Punch can crit, so you might want to check that as well...