honoroit

oh, youre right on spine burst, i read cod wrong. if its the same i can handle it. i'll miss fling tho, but siphon is welcome, as is the random splash of contaminate (we'll see if that crits, dont think so, and not fussed... its not marked as doing so, it actually happens via an ability called 'decontaminated' which does dmg and removes the debuff) the no draw thing really helped spines. it feels good now. despite lacking quills, and impale being slowish (but good range and anti fly), and ripper being just awful - its good. battle axe made the short cones mini sphere aoes... and i hope is the design philosophy by homecoming team going foward, and makes updates to other sets. it is vastly easier to use / actually hit multiple targets.

ok, for science.... ill do a rad/rad. its not that elec isnt awesome - elec/shield was a fun one, but one noted. abusing rad armor recovery with procs, providing a team heal, and having a st high damage that i need to make myself just use on cd, and never wait for contaiminated (just taking the base 2x80hp heal when it happens) is nice for survive. its slowish, at 2.38s. likewise atom smasher is super slow compared to thorn burst, double cast time almost (1.67 vs 3) but it hits harder, and would prolly proc well at 22s base vs 15 in spine burst. so many choices...

re: staff fighting - currently raising a rad/staff tanker, and the cones are massive. 'king the fairy king' ty for heads up on thunderstrike, fake aoe, no ty. all in all youre paying a lot for that tp, and having it be energy dmg. thorns is good - the aoe burst from stealth can mess stuff proper. its on a 15s base cooldown, and is 15ft, so its a regular for me. i loved my spines/bio 'psalms of oranbega' however... rad... seems decent, rad melee, a couple of % to disorient (~60%, and mag 3 and 2 on the aoe) a heal, if the mob is contaminated. i remember this being a drop annoying. a mix of energy, toxic, and smashing. contaminated makes a 'portion' of dmg splash. ive also never properly tried rad melee. Hitting a Contaminated target with Contaminated Strike, Radioactive Smash, Radiation Siphon and Devastating Blow cause a portion of the power's damage to be dealt to up to 5 nearby foes.

ill test it, but have strong misgivings! its like eggplant slices... its fine buried in lasagna, but is like slime goo when served as a slab. maybe cross-punch is delicious! i think @Riot Siren may have given more solid reasons - but hell, that what the beta server is for. neither the two of you take the pbaoe. activation time? it has me thinking spines more and more... ripper is a skip, but fling thorns and the pbaoe do very well... the rad aoe is nice, but its hardly frequent. elec probably has a better ST chain. rad melee would be nice thematically, ice is nice but i have an ice/bio i got fed up with, but that was probably bc it was /bio...

i wont slot fighting pool attack powers, on principle. im wondering spines vs elec with a rad now, which has pretty great slot diversity and no longer suffers draw time... 🤔 id take combat teleport vs super speed. bound on powexec_location target, it makes distances a non factor, chasing blaster aoe dregs is less fun imo.

while im not about to fetch them, many builds posted here on these forums remove taunt - favoring instead aggro forward attacking, and just body pulling w punchvoke, taunt aura, and whatever one can fling. im inclined of this way. combat teleport, or taunt? ill take the 3x hop skip. i used to run taunt a lot, but 5 targets, a steamroll, and the fact it wont stick regardless of slotting if you are indeed herding to cap... means it is excluded. and im probably the best tanker on homecoming, certainly excelsior, so Id know.

taunt is pretty useless and dangerous, at target cap. the extras flip attention (eg added group), the released will recapture from taunt aura, and youve a flip activated mob loose, with its range reduced, wholl go to the highest threat it is aware of aside the caster. granted, that's with a lot of monsters, but not all that uncommon. aside, and functionally, its rarely if ever required. taunt already can do damage with the io adding chance for psi, which is nice i suppose, in the set that gives it. but, to me, core problem is the mobs wont stick past target cap on you, same as if you try to pick up too many in a farm. if anything, doubling the target cap or extending it with taunt, specifically, would be nice.

now i remember...

on topic then: dmg like spectral wounds on taunt to - 1/ put more threat / punchvoke on taunter AT 2/ let taunt clip low end crap as an execute (shitty gear coggy things etc would be killed if enough phantom dmg) 3/ make taunt a more attractive pick, especially coupled with io that chance for psi dmg 4/ like a bit less than 'fault' damage? i like it, personally, but powercreep - or needed enablement?

battle axe proliferate........ i know jacobs ladder is terrible, and chain induction is a 5 cap... the tp is amaze but i can just combat teleport.... is rad melee that bad? our one tier list is quite out of date. im probably the best stalker on homecoming, probably. so i should make one if no one else does...

what was that show... it was great at the time. cheesy, but good 🧀

im prolly gonna make a bunch of them and keep being re-roll'ey at ~20... there's always broadsword/shield. his name is Figs tho. wish you could do thorn / shield...

Stalker (Electrical Melee - Radiation Armor).mbd ...why not... something like... (attached, mids still messed up)??? ya... but he looks hardy on the build thing. EDIT: oh, no no he's not... i had the soul push-def toggled on in mids... fixed in attached... he can get shadow meld every 35s, and it lasts 15s... so that'd help... Stalker (Electrical Melee - Radiation Armor).mbd

oooh... well, will i live tho...? ive always done def sets on stalker, and indeed soul epp for moonbeam + the moment-of-survive-more thing. tempting, i like rad armor on my rad/staff tanker.

Electrical Melee / ??? which secondary (pls comment with why)

it's just how things are.

I'm probably the most skilled tanker on excelsior, so I'll help you understand how I protect my team! 1/ taunt isnt wonderous one slotted. the range reduce will force mobs to approach you, and you then hope a taunting aura or them seeing your punch-voke holds them to you 2/ DAMAGE can be added with the 'chance to add psionic damage' IO - it goes off maybe 50-60% of things hit, depends on its mood. 3/ if you 6 slot taunt... hm... well, itll have a higher duration, and on overlap of reapply of taunt you'll end up with mag stacking...but you run into a problem --> you could also take a 2nd taunt from the powerpool 'tuff stuff' or whatever its called. this gives another proc spot for the damage io, and lets you really spam about taunts. but it won't stop THE problem... 4/ THE problem is target cap -- you cant have more than the target cap of monsters on you. to the point they'll stop entirely if you keep trying to get more. the new ones will stick, the older ones who'd been with you will drop off. -->> this can be DANGEROUS in groups, where those mobs over cap will peel off and start on other players if those other players are in range and the mob is aware of them. could taunt use more/some damage? that's not really its job. could the target cap for tankers and brutes be doubled without devestating balance or anything exciting like that - yes, but people would complain farms got faster or now they die in farms bc more mobs. THE problem is aggro hold on max target cap and drop off of excess mob in a way that can be unexpected for ordering of dropoff, to me. And my characters are probably the mightiest of tankers on homecoming. so I'd know.

^ as said, great control set, terrible damage. it might best to think your role as disablement (which you can do with sleep patch and jolting chain almost on its own... paired with dark affinity you'll have what is always a good 2ndary, unique to controller. it works best to shine though if you can layer up to hit debuff from a primary that generates it - dark, or to a lesser but still exceptional (and autofiring cone cannon) degree; illusion and its spectral terror. illusion is not a high damaging set... unless... you can get phantom army permanent. then its decent, and youll have spookieboogie dark servant, and the phantasm (who isnt nearly as weak as some say)... plus, show your pet window, so youll see right away if he dies. illusion also stacks well with dark affinity for defense holding powers and luck of the gambler (you can have 5) elec gremlin pets do decent damage, its you in the equation that does not, power wise. epic pool - scorpion. this will help any controller imo. poison ray and disruptor blast take like 5 and 6 procs respectively, and you have opportunity for focused accuracy for hard content (you dont need to worry about end much at all on dark affinity, soul absorbtion is a monster skill for long lasting, often near cap recovery, and about 5/s if you hit literally only 1 mob, when 6 slotted set for end mod). returning to strengths of elec control - it has the best sleep in game - bc it puts them back into it after theyre hit by you or team. elec / kin corruptor would work well'ish, because of shock when the enemies have low or no endurance. best elec ranged imo os elec/elec blaster - where that shock mechanic is going off a lot. to the point where it doesnt feel worse than fire, and is certainly a change. melee, elec/shield, stalker. on dominator: elec/earth - melee splosion elec/thorny - just wonderous aoe, skip ripper and thorntrops elec/savage - sleep, then tp in sleep, then tp in can be also achieved with spring attack from leaping pool, which you can proc up but has high base cooldown.

its a quite common one. you don't need to look hard. that's why they picked it.

is that not the duty of every community minded player? why does this thread exist? to call to a problem, consider it and give attention - and ideally provide discussion for admins to think upon - and fix it. we should not have to endure another spike like seen, and dealt with promptly - nor should we have a pox upon public chat channels.

but it is, when you start linking pejoratives with a placeholder word, and not a clever one either - where do 'pandas' come from? why would you want to harm them and har har about it in public chat? why would you just use the word as a placeholder for other things? to be racist, and enjoy non-culpability, more than likely. it is not reasonable to want to 'round (em) up <pandas>, and burn them in a pit' -- its a placeholder to allow one to be awful.

the quality of the paper may be awful - and to point, why do you think they spelled something about covid as pandAmonium? its that which appeals to the kind that do the same in public channels on excelsior. 'woo woo'? ignorant, knowing of it and rolling about in it. yes, unfortunately.

it's pretty much akin to calling COVID-19, the 'China virus'. its a type that does, that whole counter-culture a prior poster mentioned. the 'deplorables', others would say.

did you talk about putting pandas in a pit and setting them aflame? or bbqing them? or starving them? <place word> <insulting text> ===> non-culpable?

for about 20m after the recent wall of hate incident, no. but yes. if anything of a furor at these folks should the astartes have shot the inquisitor in the head?