Call Me Awesome

I kind of look at Build up powers as useful for an alpha strike on a primary damage character. On my Elec/SD stalker it's BU/LR/SC/Fireball/Chain/Thunderstrike/ for the initial alpha strike. I haven't run the numbers but most of that will benefit from BU... I mainly use it to boost the two nukes, if the nukes are up so is BU. My Fire/EM Blaster uses Aim/BU/Nuke/Fireball/ as the opener. By the way, anyone know if the buff lasts for an attack if the animation starts at 9 seconds in but doesn't finish until 11? On the other hand, I never take BU on a Tanker; my purpose is aggro and durability first and foremost with damage coming second so BU is an easy skip to make room for more useful powers.

Well, Invuln doesn't get a Rise of the Phoenix type power so all it's good for is turning you into Veng bait... provided someone on the team took the power. You'll still need to rez and retoggle everything before you become useful again.😁 Frankly as a melee character you're much better off staying vertical in the first place. Save the horizontal playstyle until after the mission.😂 I agree totally about crashes, Blasters got their Nuke Crash eliminated and the newer armor sets got a much weaker crash on their T9. Stone Armor is a whole 'nother story... I think the set needs a page one rethink personally. Yeah, Granite has the best durability in the game, but it's not worth all the penalties it saddles you with. I say that as someone who played two level 50 Stone Armor tanks back on Live, both of them post issue 5 and pre-IO.

Sorry, it's been so long since I looked at it I got the duration wrong. 🤔 Still, it WILL kill you if you aren't sitting out of combat waiting around when it drops. Give it the One with the Shield treatment, lower buffs with a much lower crash, and it'll become useful in edge cases. As it stands you're better off without it.

I had a Spine/Elec Scrapper on Live, as I remember it was pretty effective once it matured a bit. It was a bit squishy in the lower levels and some mobs *COT, cough* were miserable as they went right through your armor and nuked your to hit. I agree with the idea of focusing on your offense early to kill things before they can chew through your defenses. It will get better as it matures, remember that most characters have trouble in the earlier going before the builds mature. You're not going to perform like a level 50 when in the teens.

I'll admit I haven't really looked at the current state of KB vs KB protection but back on Live the rule was either slot for MAG 4 or go to MAG 12... there was almost no KB around that was more than 4 but less than 8 so slotting 8 was pointless. MAG 4 would handle the vast majority, but you needed MAG 10 or better to deal with anything that was stronger than 4. I do recall that there's a few KB powers that will beat MAG 12, mostly from Lord Recluse when he's buffed by his tower.

I find Unstoppable to be the worst power in the entire Invuln set, it amps up your resistances and recovery then if you're still in combat when it drops it's a death sentence. It may get you through one combat but you'll have to stop and wait for it to drop, retoggle, and then continue on with the next one... or enter the next combat, have it drop and then kiss the floor. It's EXTREMELY skippable and it allows room in the build for something more useful. Frankly that's the best I can say about it. Other than possibly as an IO mule, and there's better choices for that, it's not worth having and unless and until it changes to work like One with the Shield and similar powers. The 100% endurance and 90% HP crash renders it nearly pointless. It's been widely known as a 2 minute suicide switch ever since issue 4 at least. I don't recall when it's recharge was changed to not be possible to perma it, but it's been baggage ever since.

Unless it has changed... I haven't looked at the numbers recently... it only has a 3" radius around the character so it'll only affect players who are right on top of you.

Sounds like a bug allowing the slotting of non functional enhancements.

I've generally thought of Dark Blast for a Defender, that -to hit allows them to absolutely neuter a spawn... Blasters don't get nearly the same benefit. Damage wise it was middle of the pack on Defenders, I haven't looked at the Blaster numbers.

I'm quite happy with the /EM secondary... boost range is a great power. With my Fire/EM I'm never out of range of the enemy, if I can target them I can hit them.

I have one that just broke into the 40's, it's a capable set. It's not Fire Blast but it does decent damage and it has one of if not the longest ranged attacks. Another bonus is the endurance use, this thing is insanely light on your blue bar. I can fly, run 4 toggles and still attack full out without issues... and I have only the base slot in Stamina.

It's nice for the DDR it provides, however I usually pick it up very late in my build. My Elec/Shield Stalker got it at 49, my BS/Shield Scrapper is likewise planning it at 49. The only benefit it really gives YOU is the DDR and another LOTG mule. I did get it earlier on my Shield tankers, but that's for a different role in combat.

Dunno, it's always been a high damage set though. I tend to think more of the blame rests on the current state of Regeneration; it was repeatedly nerfed into oblivion in the early days of the game and hasn't recovered yet. It does take a lot of work to make it survivable, and it's much more demanding on your attention while playing it than other secondaries. Ah well, quite a few of my favorites are relatively rare; my namesake Inv/Stone tanker is a combination I've only run into a few times in all the years I've played. Then again I'm not immune to the FOTM, back on Live I had Fire/Rad & Ill/Rad controllers among others and my other Stalker now is Elec/Shield.

Really in my opinion Defenders get so much out of the pool you really ought to grab the big three, Assault/Tactics/Maneuvers. I fit them into every Defender I've ever played, and most Controllers as well.

I dunno, somehow I can see getting THIS: Edit Ok, maybe just this instead.

Fallout kind of suffered from the depressing environment and the repetitive nature of the quests. I enjoyed the series quite a bit but I tended to get bored with all the "go here and talk to everyone and their brother to find x". It got especially frustrating when replaying and having to go talk to this person about their cow and how that person might know about something else all over again. I did play all the versions of Fallout a few times, New Vegas may have been the high water mark for the series.

Honestly the last time I tried Dark Armor was probably way back around issue 7 or 8, pre IO in any case. I found the set frustrating to play because of it's high endurance usage... just running the armor and aura toggles ate up nearly your entire recovery pool leaving very little for attacking. I think I got the character, I believe a Spine/Dark Scrapper, to the mid-20's and abandoned it due to those issues. I do know that IO bonuses can solve it's woes nowadays but I've never tried it again. Too many alts, too little time.

One of the combos that surprised me with how functional it was is my Fire/Regen Stalker. I'm not sure why I started the character but by the time I'd reached 50 with a good IO build that provided a bunch of S/L defense she was a very survivable and powerful character. The latest statistics showed that I'm one of only two with that combination at 50; it's much better than you'd expect from no more popular it is. I will admit that a bone standard SO build would be lacking; we all know the current state of Regen. Still, with high defenses it's very effective.

I've used it for inspiration a few times when I didn't want to go with my default jeans & t shirt. Occasionally it does spark an idea.

Well, I've enjoyed http://grrlpowercomic.com/. If comics have a decent storyline and acceptable artwork I'll follow it.

While that would simplify things it would also end up being a nerf to the current power levels because you would loose a LOT of set bonuses. Assuming you're slotting like many Tri Form builds you'll have the Nova and Dwarf powers all 4-6 slotted. That's quite a few IO bonuses you'd be loosing. It's going to be tough to juggle overpowering the bonuses with nerfing them.

I'll have to look it up to make sure but I think it's like this: Human - "powexectoggleoff bright nova$$powexectoggleoff white dwarf$$powexectoggleon combat jumping$$powexectoggleon shining shield$$powexecname inner light$$goto tray1" Nova - "powexectoggleon bright nova$$goto tray4" Dwarf - "powexectoggleon white dwarf$$goto tray5" The first press of the human key drops me to Human, changes the bottom tray to my human form power tray and turns on CJ, the second press turns on Shining Shield and the third press fires off Inner Light. Yes, sometimes it doesn't register a button press, if that happens just push it again... since they're all toggle on commands it will eventually activate them all. The Nova button shifts me to Nova and changes the bottom tray to my Nova powers while the Dwarf turns me to Dwarf and swaps to the Dwarf power tray. You can use whatever tray you wish, I just use tray 1 for my Human attacks and whatnot, tray 2 & 3 are extra powers, tray 4 is just the Nova powers and tray 5 is just the Dwarf powers.

I've not had any experience good or bad with GM's here on HC but I have to congratulate everyone involved in our resurrect dead spell here. They're all working as volunteers in a frequently thankless job and I for one appreciate it. To anyone who's complaining about the crew here, just remember that they're doing it for FREE so we can have a game we enjoy playing. Let's all keep that in mind and cut them some slack if something happens you don't like.

Here's CMA's current build, it's about as optimal as I can come up with currently. Highlights: Soft Capped or within 1.5% of soft capped to S/L/E/N/F/C damage, 30% Melee/AOE, 20% Ranged Resistance 90% S/L, 84% F/C, 70% E/N, 55% T/P Endurance and recovery adequate for long AV battles. I did not build for Regeneration per se, I'm sitting at 196%. Gaining more regen would have meant sacrificing other areas of the build.

I'm probably not a good choice for advice on this, my default is jeans and a T Shirt. Why you ask? Well, have you ever tried getting Hami goo out of that fancy leather costume? Just go to Wally World and buy new, it's lots cheaper. 😀