Meknomancer

I know its an old thread but i've seen more than a few darkity/dark sent builds lately running either dark/soul epics and some chat on forums. So went back over everything other players were putting in and had a look at their much greater experience with the sets. I gave up on mine the thunderstrike sets alone made me cry. After a good few hours in mids and looking at a few builds @oldskoolposted.....i went in the complete opposite direction 😛 First i looked at the AT sets, melee defence and e/ne defence, devs must have made them that way for a reason i thought. I'll build for melee and play it as a scrapper. That worked out ok for a while but the endurance issues were a pain and cardiac meant the already measly damage didn't improve. So i dumped leadership.....and fighting and somehow ended up with every travel pool (can't get enough of fold space) and decided scrapping is the way to go, with some control chucked in. Shame i can't replace all the ranged attacks with melee powers from the epics as i would definitely do that if i could, sents play so much better in melee and just about every combo runs powers in the primary/secondary/epic/patron pools that require you to be up close. Ended up renaming it, putting it in a different cossie and looking for powers that synergise. Primary was easy its all - to hit that stacks up. Sents get the best epics/patron powers but 1 set is so far out in front of the others its laughable. Psi has better recharge and slotting options luckily thats good for a theme and.... Oppressive gloom with Psy Shockwave for stuns. Abyssal and Dominate are a stacked hold. Then i run into problems, i take the powers i want, chuck sets in and its a complete mess of tiny resist numbers and no defence whatsoever. Even if i wanted to put fighting and leadership back in to bump the numbers theres no slots left. I look at the build and theres not 1 single enhance in it that doesnt look essential apart from the 1 slotted mass hypnosis that is a force pick to get dominate and psy shockwave. Few hours more and i'm building it for melee defence and e/ne def with as much res as i can get. Trying to keep the power picks, i combat tp into the mob aim-fold space-nuke-dark oblit-psy shockwave hit obscure sustenance at some point, which says pbaoe but is in fact single target and doesn't seem to do anything but my regen jumps just enough that i can fire off a few life drains and keep my hp up. I know sent life drain is the worst and the way i slotted it makes no sense, although the same could be said for OS but the blue bar can drop drastically and the theft procs seem to keep me afloat since i dumped cardiac. Really needs some pro eyes to look over it, i had to give up hasten (threw in fly, i was sick of trying to tp my way through mission tunnels) and all but a tiny bit of my recharge to fit in the picks i wanted. It kind of works, its only a small purple from softcap melee/e/ne def and just about scrapes in enough res to survive but the accuracy is pretty bad, almost as bad as the damage. It plays more like a controlling scrapper but with none of the oomph. Combat teleport while hovering and Fold space makes it fun and that makes it playable.

No expert on elec tankers. Turn off power surge. Click info bottom left. Thats your resists now. Here's how you could toss pieces in roughly, you'd have to shuffle in power picks and sets etc. but you look like you know what your doing. Check resist numbers. You should be aiming for something like that and i think you could do it no problem (empty stuff was just me using a very old build i have and swapping in kinetic melee just so you can see the melee defence and resists) :

Its not much but some def is better than none, looks like you skipped reactive scaling piece 🙂 Might look like recharge is worse but theres an ff+rech in shockwave. Resists look about the same. Tried to stick with your picks but sirens song is superior to howl now and buys you breathing room:

Then i'm sure this is exactly what your not looking for (i'm already imagining 4 thunderstrike and 2 artillery sets) 😢

@BazookaTwo not sure i have but if i do its all good, pvp chance for damage procs arent limited to 1/toon. Ah you mean the glad chance for toxic? You can throw in as many of those as you like. 1 per each ranged attack that can slot it.

I have one with a couple of builds on it i can switch between depending on how i feel or the situation. I don't bother aiming for 45% to anything as its got enough ff+rech slotted that power boost tends to be up all the time and i can just leave it on auto which is a good thing as its easily the clickiest blaster set by a mile with hasten-power boost-energize-boost range, before you even consider hitting build up. One runs mace and hits massive s/l defence with pb on for melee'ing the energy attacks, the other runs munitions when i just want to hop around the mob and is extremely squishy and best used on teams with a decent tank. I took a lot of the slotting for both from some of @Nemubuilds and then fiddled with them to fit the way i like to play. Rifle/Nrg/Mace. Turn on PB and you'll get defence numbers. Total focus/bone smasher/energy punch sets can be moved about, TF is basically being used as a mule and can be swapped out for slug/bean bag/ignite. Munitions build only hits about 40% ranged with PB on but runs a t4 barrier to carry it through.

So far the excel ones i've been on have all been PUG's but the leader always makes sure whoever gets Des takes a tp then leaves her to someone who understands the mechanics and the one of the speedrunners starts incandesing the league with the leader specifically telling everyone to accept the tp. Not going to start putting players globals on here but if you play on excel you'll know who i mean. From what i've seen so far it only takes 2-3 players who know each other and co-ordinate well together to knock 60-90 minutes off it without skipping any of the standard badges. Bit different with badge runs but like tinpex you can fluke them if you speed it often enough. There is a problem with this as you say, players attention spans and them getting far too used to someone who knows what they are doing teleporting them through every trial and tf (starting to see a lot of players advertising speed runs then doorsitting waiting for a tp that never comes, then being asked why they aren't helping, trying to speed and faceplanting on every mob due to their build being made up of every primary/secondary/epic power with flight as the last pick and i'm not talking about new players, i've seen a vet level 1000+ doing this) . I'd agree if it was entirely a PUG it may cause a problem but when was the last time you saw someone who didn't know what they were doing lead an itrial 🙂 Nowadays its chock full of old vets chasing the new currencies for the mini modes and vanity pets. I have no problem either way, if they wanna speed i don't mind, if they wanna take it slow and organised thats fine too, all i was saying was that of the last 40+ i've been on about 90% were speed runs with incades getting used and there were no problems with it.

So theres been a lot of UG trials run and lately most of them have been speed runs. The last few i did with @Living Brain 3000running them went very smoothly and we got a good few badges/run but those were non-speed. DO NOT HAVE INCAN SLOTTED BECAUSE DESDEMONA IS NOT TELEPORTABLE. The speed runners run with incandes and tp the league regularly skipping large parts of the trial and let you complete the whole thing within 25-30 minutes easily and you end up with all the badges bar preservation specialist. Avatar Assassin is either a fail or a fluke, an attempt is made and you either get it or you don't. I don't know how the teleports affect Desdemona but the runs with incandes have never failed and tour guide is pretty much guaranteed so i'm uncertain why you feel its essential to not slot that particular destiny. Successful preservation specialist runs have been made on speed UG's but i've only seen them on torch and not since @PF? took a break from the game. Lining up the league and assigning half to one side of the tunnel and half to the other then just bum rushing the bombs as fast as possible seems to work without spending 45 minutes shuffling teams and assigning snipers.

DB/Bio scrapper is probably the best but a DB/SR scrap can load up on even more procs (4/attack) and still have softcapped defences easily. Its not great on a stalker and brutes are in a horrible place right now due to having the worst melee AT sets available compared to the excellent ones on scrap/stalker/tank.

For me it depends on the secondary and what defence/resist numbers i aim for. On the rad/rad all the procs get loaded into the single target attacks and i use the pbaoes for set bonuses (ranged+ranged aoe sets are pretty crap, pbaoe +melee sets are pretty awesome) I don't bother with shield breaker i prefer the glad chance for toxic in ranged and the armageddon/eradication in pbaoe. I don't use the decimation and only threw in a single achilles in the tier 3 single target.

Its not just mercs.

Turn off group fly at null the gull. If you have it yourself or are flying you'll have to go to ground level to apply the upgrades. I posted something about this a while back.

I recently quit a tf because of this problem after repeatedly asking another player to stop using incades destiny and tp'ing my pets out of supremacy range and then watching them die while i got battered by the mobs they'd left. It was a speed run....and i was first to the mobs and already fighting when they'd arrive 15 seconds later and tp the team and my pets to another part of the map, just far enough away that i could see them and watch my pets die trying to get back to me. I declined every tp but the pets don't get that option.

Option 4 (you'd need to be desperate for recharge at this point). Put kick on auto. pray the RNG is kind. Be prepared to chase down everything you then kb because it will get up and run away due to the broken taunt mechanic.

Option 3. Fit crosspunch in. An ff+rech in that will fire off regularly if you slot it as a proper attack.

I have an old necro/storm but its not had a respec since the changes. Storm is the no. 1 secondary if your after extra dps. Its also the most chaotic and will have your pets running after mobs and out of supremacy range. With necro i'd recommend /dark or /time or /ta or pretty much any secondary that will let you control the mobs with slows/holds/knockdowns. On the other hand what @Nyghtmaire said. More recharge for soul extraction.

When your looking at the above builds there's a few things you'll have to do first. Turn off hasten. Turn off soul drain. Turn off kick if its got an ff+rech in. You won't use kick even if you have it in your tray. You won't have it in your tray. If you have it in your tray and use it it'll most likely miss. If you have it in your tray and use it and it hits the chance of the proc firing off is miniscule. Turn off the alpha. Now look at the defence and resist numbers that are your priority as a tank. Now look at the recharge on soul drain which is the main focus of your build. Cross your fingers and pray for kicks ff+rech firing off. If your running dark your probably already looking at cardiac due to the massive endurance issues. Running cardiac will let you run barrier. Running cardiac and barrier means soul drain will never ever get even close to perma. Option 2. Agility. Now you have end issues but your much much closer to perma hasten/soul drain. End issues mean dark consumption. Or ageless. To get perma soul drain means sacrifices and what are you prepared to give up to get there? Defence? Resists? Endurance? Or your favourite attacks? Cos you'll need the extra slots. This is my take, give up midnight grasp, the set has no aoe and i'd want dark oblit. Swap in agility. Sacrifice some fire/cold res. Sacrifice some melee defence. Open the build. Turn on agility, hasten, soul drain, click slots/enhancements, set all relative levels to +5. Its still got a 2-3 second downtime and hasten isn't even perma. It doesn't look playable, its like Mission Impossible except theres no happy ending. And yes it does need the kb protection and even at 12 points thats not enough.

In what world does super strength compare to dark melee?

Here's a lazy 2 min build (like it took 2 min to put in mids and i throw in scorp and don't bother trying to fit in soul mastery with soul drain and power boost and just chuck in bits and see what number sit ends up with) . Start there and shuffle sets/powers about til you get what you want. I don't have one. Meteor cast time isn't long (2.57 seconds to fires inferno at 3 seconds) and you can use the long animation to your advantage hitting other attacks like upthrust so they pretty much land at the same time wiping out entire mobs seemingly in 1 hit. Dark requires set up time, applying fearsome stare/tar patch/darkest night if you can be bothered. Its late and i'm half asleep so i'll just toss it in:

I must be half asleep i make so many mistakes on here, it was controller version of power boost from primal forces and the defence numbers did drop off with farsight once PB dropped. No reason for troller version to be different from mm/fender/corr i'll have to check those too. It would mean PB is only good for about 15 seconds extra defence when farsight is used for some reason.

It may have been a mistake on my part. I was running with a controller and primal forces. It was power build up and farsight not power boost. And the defence numbers dropped once the build up dropped.

Still don't even know what travel pool you like so its still got fly. Damage is even lower, traded attacks for defence.

Maintenance drone will keep bots healed short of them getting 1 shotted. Power boost before applying bubble will bump the bots defence to silly high levels although i'm not sure how long that lasts for now as i've noticed power boosted farsight on /time only lasts til power boost fades so you may not have the full 4 minutes with the bubbles. Either way the t2 pet applys def bubbles on top and with that and manouvres and dispersion they should have more than enough. Helps if you can keep them and the mob inside the damping bubble at the same time. Bots are the squishiest pets with the least resistance so if something gets through the defence it will hurt them but the new page 5 changes allow you to bump bot pet resists with the t1 upgrade. Damage wise i'm not sure how i feel about the changes, i play a lot of mercs mm's both before and after page 5 they were my favourites and now i feel like they are the no. 1 dps pet although the necro players will argue otherwise due to the new soul extraction, mercs being pure ranged means they feel faster and so much tougher with serum. Bots feel like they dropped a tier or 2. But that could just be my imagination after playing them for so many years and relying on the t3 for all damage as the t1 and t2 are both putting out more than they were. I suspect its the removal of the - regen to the mm's personal attacks that makes the difference. If you skipped those you will notice it more. On the other hand bubbles now apply some - res so it should even things out assuming you have those.

Its difficult to know what to toss without knowing what powers you take/what your playstyle is. Do you hang around at the back and send the pets in? Do you use the mm attacks for the - regen and - resist? Do your run with stealth and stay as far away as possible and just command the pet? Do you hop directly into the centre of the mobs and drop the damping bubble and throw out photon nade and force bomb on mobs while firing repulsion and a rifle debuffing hard targets? Do you need the fighting pool or do you prefer sorcery? Or do you just want something to look at. I have a build but i cannot imagine any other player wanting to run it, i like group fly for many reasons the main 1 being it keeps pets out of melee but also because it speeds them up between mobs. On teams there will always be that 1 player that didn't talk to null the gull and turn off group fly and will them complain that your griefing the team despite everyone else carrying on as usual without even noticing its on. I like power boost for the bubbles. I like it for when i hop into mobs and the brief moments of extra defence. Posting builds leaves you open to criticism. Sometimes its helpful. Often its just a load of advice from someone who's never posted their own, good advice but without a build to look at you have to wonder if they ever played the combo. Something to look at. Post a build and then maybe you'll get the help you want.