Werner

I used my Katana/Dark Armor Brute to do the solo no inpsiration +4x8 MoITF, and it's also been done by at least a Sentinel, a Tanker, and an Arachnos Soldier. But I'm sure my Brute isn't the best overall choice for soloing +4x8 missions with AVs. My damage output won't allow me to solo a lot of the level 54 AVs out there. My lack of defense debuff resistance probably won't allow me to solo a lot of the level 54 AVs out there, though maybe if I picked up Ageless Radial rather than Barrier Core, I'd have a better shot. I've also yet to throw myself against all the enemy groups in game and see how consistent my performance is, how bad my weaknesses are. You're looking for consistency, and obviously consistently extremely good. Or you may even be looking for something with a weakness where that weakness can be easily addressed by inspirations and/or temporary powers. I also doubt that melee is the best overall choice for these things, but since Scrappers and Brutes are all I play these days, I'm not really in the know on what the other Archetypes are capable of. I would guess that you're looking for some specific sort of build in a Blaster, Sentinel, Defender, or Controller, but I just don't know.

About how much global recharge is needed for that chain? It looks like you need 345% recharge in Midnight Grasp. You have 100% base, call it +95% from slotting, +20% from Quickness, +70% Hasten, so about +60% global. Easy to five slot LotG on a Super Reflexes for +37.5%, so +22.5% from other sources.

I think that Fiery Embrace is a different kind of beast. In Mids at least, it's applying a percentage of your already-buffed damage rather than your base damage as extra fire damage. If that's right, and I suspect that it is, then Fiery Embrace is multiplying your Fury, your enhancements, and most other damage buffs. Not procs, but maybe everything else? Maybe someone else can confirm. If so, it's a must have.

He probably logged off for awhile and came back to finish it. LOL, yeah, that wasn't all at once. I'm slow, but I'm not that slow. I did the first three missions Saturday morning, the last one Sunday morning.

But surely after 4 slots used your close to if not maxed out? I mean the set bonuses, damage resistance set bonuses, not the enhancement values in damage resistance powers. Let's look at Superior Blistering Cold in Divine Avalanche, for instance. One reason I took the set was for the 6% fire/cold resistance. However, taking the set also gave me 10% mez resistance to all. And that's true across most or maybe even all of the damage resistance set bonuses - they come paired with mez resistance bonuses. The build has +26% SL +42% FC +35% EN and +19% TP resistance from set bonuses alone. But in getting those damage resistance bonuses, I happened to pick up 150% of mez resistance bonuses. Edit: Or am I misunderstanding the question? Are you asking why I slotted 5 pieces of Unbreakable Guard in Obsidian Shield, my mez resistance power? The mez resistance of Obsidian Shield is actually unenhanceable. The enhancement values are for the psionic resistance. As far as why there are 5 pieces rather than fewer, that's mostly for the set bonuses. However, overslotting in this case is valuable even outside of the set bonuses. The least helpful enhancement is the resist/end/rech. If you unslot it, we don't just lose the 3.75% psionic resistance bonus. We also lose another 1% resistance from the enhancement value, despite being in the red on enhancement diversification, because the base value of the power is so high. And when you're approaching the hard cap on resistance, even 1% makes a big difference. It's an uncommon damage type, but still. But anyway, the main point was the set bonuses. I know you say your build, but would this apply to all brute's mid mob, fury maxed out? Yes, the same argument would apply to any similar build up power on a Brute. The damage buff will be watered down, possibly even to the point of harming DPS rather than helping, and even when helping, it's probably usually very little help. There may still be cases where it's worth taking. The to-hit buff can be useful, for instance. The damage buff wouldn't be as watered down while leveling, or if a Tanker is grabbing all the aggro, or if you have no or little damage from procs and incarnate powers. But start piling on massive Fury and other sources of damage, and Build Up's luster quickly starts to fade. So it's a case by case basis, but in general, yes, I don't think Brutes benefit very much from this sort of build up power. It looks pretty impressive when you see +80% damage buff, but while that's technically accurate, it sure feels like false advertising once you see what it contributes overall in practice. On Brutes. I want to be clear. Brutes. Brutes are special.

Thank you, and good questions! I was actually slotting for damage resistance bonuses. When you do that, mez resistance just comes along for the ride. So my high mez resistance is really just a result of my high damage resistance, rather than a specific build goal. I suppose it was nice to not be stunned for long after each Nictus went down in the Romulus fight, but since I was hovering out of Romulus's debuff range, it would have been very difficult for them to put me down while stunned regardless. In any case, I wasn't specifically building for it. A good IO to grab if I were building for it would be the Aegis 5% psionic 20% status resistance. For Build Up, the damage buff can get so watered down on Brutes that it may end up not being worth it. I've not done the math, but I'm guessing it would only add something small to DPS, maybe 3%. There's also the to-hit buff, which is situationally useful, but I'm already running a 25% to hit buff, so the cases where even more would help are probably rare. So other uses of a power pick and slots were just more valuable to me. But I never did the math, so let's do it now. My DPS chain is Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut, with a two-tick (0.264-second) gap. The chain takes 1.98 + 0.924 + 1.584 + 0.924 + 0.264 = 5.676 seconds. Build Up is an 80% damage buff from base damage. Base damage for that chain is 95.09 + 35.03 + 75.07 + 35.03 = 240.22. 80% of that is 192.176. So while Build Up is active, it adds 192.176 / 5.676 = 33.86 DPS. Let's say I slot Build Up with two 50+5 recharge IOs. Hasten up, recharge is 27.52 seconds, Hasten down 35.17s. I have a gap. This is probably faster than reality, but to keep things simple, let's say Build Up averages a recharge of 28.68 seconds, plus 1.32 seconds cast, for a 30 second cycle. For 10 out of every 30 seconds, I do an extra 33.86 DPS, so over time, that averages +11.3 DPS. It's not much, but it's something. I do 280 DPS now, so that's a 4% buff to damage. Or it would be if Build Up itself didn't have a cast time. But it does. So now I'm doing no damage at all for 1.32 seconds. And in 1.32 seconds I miss out on doing 1.32 * 280 = 370 damage. 370 damage every 30-second Build Up cycle. That's 12.3 DPS I've lost from not attacking. So in the final tally, we would expect using Build Up to actually lower my damage output by 1 DPS! But I've ignored that some of my damage is coming from resistance and hit point debuffs. That'll make the Build Up damage be a little higher than I calculated. It might even draw ahead a little. But if so, we're still probably only taking one or a few DPS ahead. So for my specific build, it would barely help if it helped at all, so it seems a waste of a power pick and slots and clicking effort. Hopefully I got all that right, or hopefully at least the meat of the argument is correct, even if some assumptions or calculations were wrong.

War Mace/Shield Defense Scrapper Shatter -> Jawbreaker -> Clobber T4 Musculature Core T4 Degenerative Core T4 Assault Core no Ageless no Lore pets Hit Hasten, Assault, Build Up, started timer, Shatter. Did not pull any additional enemies to power the attacks, only the pylon itself. 2:29 2:29 2:07 2:14 1:57 676 total seconds 135.2 average seconds 411 DPS Designed the build for a friend who wanted good DPS, but not just DPS. Pylon tested on beta. Still trying to find another point of melee defense (currently 58%).

My experience is with DM/SR Scrappers and Brutes, so I'm not sure how much it translates to Tankers. Hopefully someone will correct me if it doesn't. But I'm guessing hit 59%+ defense to all positions, get enough recharge to run Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Siphon Life, then focus on resistance, hit points, regeneration, sustainable endurance, various status resistances and debuff resistances, and so on. I wouldn't shoot for just basic 45% soft cap, particularly on a Tanker, where getting the defense is much easier than on a Scrapper or Brute. But yes, the 3% defense uniques are a must have.

That would unfortunately make it literally impossible due to my inability to dent true +4 AVs after damage modifiers. But other than that, reading up on the purple patch and doing a little quick math, it looks like it would actually be slightly easier that way, assuming I didn't also select "enemies buffed". It appears to me that a +3 has a 1.33x modifier for accuracy and damage. Enemies buffed is a 1.5x modifier for accuracy and damage. I'm unclear if the modifiers are additive or multiplicative, but probably then either 1.83x or 2.00x an even-level enemy. A +4 enemy is only 1.44x, so much less accurate and doing much less damage. However, dropping to tier 2 Cardiac would lower my resistance enough that I'd be taking significantly more damage for that reason. Lethal resistance would go from 84.2% to 79%, so 1.33x the damage getting through, so about 1.92x the damage vs. either 1.83x or 2.00x. Negative resistance goes from 87.4% to 83.1%, so 1.34x the damage getting through, so 1.93x vs. 1.83x or 2.00x. Enemy to-hit would be the same either way. So overall, roughly the same damage taken when hit, but I'm less likely to be hit with the normal +4s. (Edit: oops, was looking at T2 Cardiac Core with the range instead of resistance. Radial wouldn't lose as much resistance, so I'd take less damage from the +4s even when hit.) My mez duration from Oppressive Gloom also looks like it would be about the same either way. It looks like a +3 suffers only 65% the mez duration, and enemies buffed gives 2/3 mez duration. I'm guessing these are implemented as additive resistance buffs of 54% and 50%, with a final mez duration of 49%. That's very comparable to a +4 at 48% mez duration. But maybe that's not how the math works. I'd have lower accuracy modifiers against +4, but I'm running +25% global to-hit and +50% global accuracy, so I don't think it would matter. I think I'm enough over sustainable endurance that dropping to tier 2 Cardiac wouldn't cause an endurance problem. I didn't try to calculate though. I think the +4 defense debuffs would last a little longer, but I don't think that would be as big a factor as their reduced accuracy, so I suspect I'd have less rather than more trouble with defense debuffs. Hard to say. What else is different between +3 and +4? I'm sure I've missed some things. Well, I suppose instead of a bunch of theorycraft, I could try it, and just accept that I wouldn't get past the third mission's AVs. Thinking about it.

I turned up the crazy. Enemies buffed no inspirations no temporary powers no Lore no deaths +4x8 MoITF. As best I can tell, enemies buffed means a 1.5x accuracy multiplier, +50% damage, and 50% status resistance (2/3 duration). I used a newer iteration of the build (at the bottom) based on my experience last time, though not specifically geared towards the ITF, just towards general survivability. I added Oppressive Gloom and 4 more points of knockback protection, now 14, hoping that would be enough for the final AV fight, and it was. I believe I lost some fire/cold resistance and some global recharge. In mission 1, I made a mistake when I was only a few Sybils in where I aggro'd two groups when I accidentally hit R and took off flying with my damage and mez auras up. I hit Barrier as my defense went red. Dark Regeneration to get me back in the game. But most of the protection of Barrier expired while there were still far too many enemies around me debuffing my defense. I used Assault to try to clear them faster. I used Void to briefly reduce incoming damage. Red defense, down to orange or red health multiple times, Dark Regeneration recharging just in time to save my life over and over, and finally winning. Exhilarating! Yes! This! This is what I remember! This is what I've been missing! LOL OK, yes, I should've run. Scrapperlock. Brutelock? I unbound R. I can't afford mistakes like that. No serious problems the rest of mission 1. I didn't kill much more than I had to, and I avoided triggering the ambush. No need to make things more difficult... than they had to... be... wait... did I really just say that? Mission 2 went fairly well. It was mostly just slow and tedious, because I was being cautious, clearing each group guarding the crystal, clearing each ambush. There were a couple brief moments of terror when I wasn't quite fast enough with Barrier when I started getting debuffed by the White Nova. And once when I had two groups a little too close together, so I withdrew a little before hitting Dark Regeneration, and I guess I withdrew too far because I didn't heal a bit. But I'd already cleared half the group by then, probably, so I never quite got into the red. Mission 3 also went fairly smoothly. I started with the AVs, figuring if AVs had been buffed to where they could kill me, I might as well just get it over with. No problem, though. I think I used Dark Regeneration once on Romulus. I don't think I used Barrier at all. Then I took down the computer, fighting the first two waves, then just finishing the computer off at the end. The end bit was a little sketchy, involving Barrier and Dark Regeneration, but it never felt like I was in imminent danger of failing. Then it was time for the generals. I'd had trouble with wandering groups while taking down the generals before, so this time I killed the wandering groups first, then went after the generals one by one. Nothing major to report there. Some use of Barrier and Dark Regeneration, one time I got pretty low on hit points before I got Dark Regeneration off, but nothing too scary other than that. And finally, mission 4 went pretty smoothly as well. I cleared the platform area, took out a few wandering groups to avoid interruptions, and then headed in for the AVs. This time, I remembered to hover so that I could take out the Nictuses... Nicti? The fluffies without worrying about defense debuffs or much damage from Romulus. They could outdamage my passive regeneration, but not by much, so my hit points dropped only very slowly. I used Dark Regeneration twice while killing the first Nictus, then didn't need it the rest of the fight. It was mostly just a slog through the fluffies. Romulus went smoothly. I've barely run the ITF, and never looked it up, so I'm still learning tactics on my own. When he spoke, I'd spam Divine Avalanche to prepare for the ambush, hit Assault once I spotted them, target the Surgeon, and then beat them down. On the first ambush, Romulus healed to full, but I expected that. I took it as an opportunity to take a short rest. Then I just did that a couple more times without taking rest, and he was down. After that, it was just killing a few more Cimerorans to meet quota. Updated build:

I’ll add Katana/Willpower as an old classic. Easy to build, easy to level. Hard to make big mistakes with. Grab Divine Avalanche - the extra defense should make leveling easier.

TL;DR - 4 points KB protection, small endurance tweak I personally think Dark Armor is fine as is, and I'm strongly opposed to any more power creep in an already very easy game. But it isn't my game. It's a casual-friendly game, and I do hear comments both on and off the forum from people who try Dark Armor, but find it a painful for leveling, and endurance seems to be the common complaint. Setting my personal feelings aside, then, I have to agree with this: I think maybe the safest thing to make Dark Armor more accessible without affecting my top-end capabilities much would be 4 points of knockback protection. It's still a weakness then, but most of the time that's plenty. So most of the time the casual player will be fine, and they'll just occasionally be reminded they have a weakness, enough to maybe consider addressing it without being "forced" to. Meanwhile, I save only a single slot in my top-end build, and I'm still slotting for additional knockback protection. I can always do something useful with a single slot, but it'll be pretty minor. Endurance seems to be an even bigger complaint. And maybe that could also be slightly tweaked for casual enjoyment without affecting me much. I already have more than sustainable endurance because that's what IOs and incarnate powers can easily do for you. Add a little more on top of that, and maybe I won't change my build at all, or maybe I'll trade it somehow for something else, but it'll probably be something small. Any significant buffs to the effectiveness of the powers, though, I'm having a hard time agreeing would be good from a balance perspective. And I definitely don't want any dramatic changes, like "What if instead of the damage aura, we had an endurance recovery drain attack? And instead of a fear aura, we had some sort of absorb shield? And how about just a regular magnitude heal that doesn't require enemies to hit?" If you're going to buff or change, please keep it simple, and keep it small. Please don't change my favorite armor set into something different, even if it is quirky and in some ways problematic. I don't see the overlapping effects of Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom as a problem, though. I see it as giving you the option of pursuing either fears or stuns, and supporting either. Just because you wouldn't normally pick both doesn't make me feel "what a waste", it makes me feel "choices are good". But the way Cloak of Fear interacts with Death Shroud is... yeah, someone wasn't thinking that one through when they designed the set. Or perhaps more likely they expected you to run one or the other situationally. I remember being told that even though Death Shroud let the minions attack through Cloak of Fear, they did so at a reduced frequency, which is at least something. I never tested it myself to see if it's true. Since possibly relevant, I've only played Dark Armor on Scrappers and Brutes.

Well, I don't have a backstory for the costume yet, so maybe there's a bunch of us, whatever we are. One of my friends is running the same basic costume but female. Max height, skinny as can be, widest shoulders, weird head shapes, just try to make all the proportions feel wrong. Very, very wrong. Beast run is creepy. Experiment with creepy emotes for standing around.

Haha, yeah. Katana's been my favorite forever, but there are a number of Primaries I've not even tried.

I mostly feel the same way. The ability to stack huge melee/lethal defense is I think the biggest selling point of the set. I do soft cap melee without it, so when I'm cruising and things are easy and Hasten is up, it's nice to ignore Divine Avalanche and do better DPS. But to head off defense debuffs, and for incarnate content, I'll work it into my attack chain, and spam it when needed.

I'd not considered putting Panacea in Dark Regen as it seems a waste of the heal (you'll heal to full either way most of the time), but it might be a way to improve endurance management on some builds, at least when fighting in crowds. Interesting thought. I don't think I'll do it, but I'll keep it in mind.

Yes. Also, very impressive! 👍

Nice! I'm pretty unfamiliar with Arachnos Soldiers and Widows, but it's great to see what a well-built and well-played Huntsbane is capable of. I think I have a Widow at level 11 or something? I really should play him more. He's... the stuff of nightmares. Kinda creeps me out just playing him.

My default chain works for me even with Hasten down. I have 60% global recharge outside of Hasten. I often run the recharge buffed chain when Hasten is up - despite a small gap, the DPS is still better. Too much of a gap when Hasten is down, though. Flashing Steel is probably worth taking on most builds. It's a decent cone, decent DPS.

I have a TW/Bio Scrapper at 50, at which point he got mothballed. I keep meaning to pull him back out and do something with him. He was fun to play once he was swinging all that knockdown. But I also figure if I do something with him, by the time he's maxed out, he'll be nerfed. That said, who cares if I'm doing half the DPS? He'd still be doing as much as my Katana/Dark Brute, with a lot more AoE and all that lovely knockdown. And they're unlikely to cut the damage in half.

Outside of AE DPS test runs on Chimera and I think Mother Mahem, so far I've only no temps no insps soloed the L54 AVs in the ITF, and only with my Katana/Dark Brute. It really didn't feel much different to me than back in the old days soloing L50 AVs other than maybe using Dark Regen less. There's been significant power creep. At about 280 DPS, I'll probably be DPS limited on any AV with a heal or resistance, survival limited on any AV with defense debuffs. I'm incarnating my new 50 DM/SR Brute right now. I'm curious how he'll compare when he's ready. I have my doubts about his DPS being sufficient.

If you really want Sweeping Cross, we can fit it in at no great cost. Taking what I posted, grab all the slots from Tough and the LotG Defense from Maneuvers and put them in Sweeping Cross. Slot all but Damage from the Armageddon set. Slot a Ribosome in Tough. You lose 3.4% smashing/lethal resistance, but gain 6% fire/cold resistance. You lose 1.5% smashing/lethal defense. In return, you get Sweeping Cross and 10% more global recharge. Probably not a bad trade if you enjoy having more attacks, and like Sweeping Cross. Smashing/lethal resistance will still hard cap for a whole minute when you use Barrier, and for the next minute be 88.1%. You should be fine.

What you have is really quite good. Dropping Energy Mastery unfortunately means that your endurance probably won't be sustainable when fighting full speed, a problem that would only be exacerbated by dropping slots from Health. But if you're willing to be reliant on blues in long fights or to handle debuffs and drains, as most people are, you'll probably be fine. I just wouldn't push it any further by dropping slots from Health or Stamina. You actually have 15 knockback protection rather than 12, an extra 3 from Gladiator's Armor. We can use that to our advantage. Sweeping Cross doesn't seem to be slotted as an attack, so I'm guessing it's a set mule for the defense. Drop it. Move one slot to Dark Embrace, one to Obsidian Shield. Move the Gladiator's Armor unique to Obsidian Shield, remove the other Gladiator's Armors from Dark Embrace, replace with five Unbreakable Guards. Now your melee defense is 47.2%, smashing/lethal 44.7%, resists are all the same or better, and you have an open power pick. There may be other worthwhile tradeoffs, but that's the one I noticed. But I'm coming at this from a numbers perspective, not a character concept perspective.

This build isn't live yet, but it has a couple tweaks based on my experience on the ITF. I sacrificed some fire/cold resistance to pick up 4 more points of knockback protection. From a purely numbers standpoint, this may not be a great plan, as with Hover and 10 points, what little knockback I experienced barely made a dent in my DPS or survivability. But from a quality of life standpoint, I just don't like being knocked back ever. I also traded 7.5% recharge to put Oppressive Gloom back in the build. The lost recharge won't make much difference, and Oppressive Gloom will shut down any troublesome minions. Endurance should still be slightly more than sustainable even with all toggles on, and several toggles are situational. It's not a great team tank from an aggro control perspective, but it's not that bad as long as people wait for things to gather around and you to smack them with an AoE or two. You can easily swap in the Leaping pool if you prefer - swap Hover, Fly, and Afterburner for Combat Jumping, Super Jump, and Vengeance, same exact slotting, better endurance management.

Your attacks are where most of your endurance is going, so an endurance reduction in each should make a significant difference. That's where I'd start. I also normally three slot Stamina when leveling. Well, four slot actually - I stick in a Performance Shifter proc as my first slot, then three regular blues. But I'm not familiar with Rad/Rad, so I could be missing things specific to your primary and secondary that others may catch, and won't be of much help getting you from here to the endgame.