Sovera

Auras are terrible for procs. It's much better in Burn (something like 80% chance to go off in a procced out Burn). But -res procs are not very useful outside of AVs (in my experience). Tested in farm maps and there was no difference between -res procs and damage procs, with the advantage that damage procs work all the time and -res procs become semi useless if someone else in the team has them as well. If someone has data to refute this please correct me.

Second update: - Insulating is really powerful. Just like other shields it also does a minor heal on top of shielding and it all adds up. It stacks on top of Spirit Ward as well with my Bruiser having nearly half its HP bar in a shield. - Because of this it's rather simple to send the bruiser in first to soak alphas. But Thugs is like a herd of cats where some run into melee range, others pew pew from afar. This scattering does not play well with chains, as well as it may require an extra bind to only send the Bruiser in otherwise the ranged pets start attacking before the Bruiser has even come into range. - Speaking of binds I'm running out! Two upgrades, three pet summons, five elec powers, both Sorcery toggles, one attack command for pets, one Follow/Bodyguard command, etc. Most of these in constant need of being used. - Pets are definitely too slow. Considering the low damage of Enflame I'm going to propose only taking Spirit Ward from Sorcery and then go all the way up to Group Fly. With the devs having helped MMs with the fast re-summon and lower endurance cost the only thing left is the tardiness of pets showing up for combat, as well as dying when we just go from one mission to the next. If I was to re-roll things I would change: - All melee or all range primary. Bots works exceedingly well as a flying ball of missiles and death though the damage is low. Ninjas are great at ST but lag in AoE, but they are all melee and Elec Affinity would do a good job at keeping them safe. Necro might be a good bet too. - Group Fly instead of Enflame. - MMs are still a bit too fiddly (and way way too many keybinds). An alternative would be an AT with a single melee pet for the whole Spirit Ward/Enflame (not requiring Group Fly then) gameplay (it does have merit since it helps baby tanks) though that greatly narrows the options. Combos who do multiple pets like Fire or Electricity would not play well.

Status update: - Blitzed through the levels at a grand speed. Reached Manticore with two hours left on my Amplifiers which is some sort of new record for me. Team can be kept safe and productive pretty much since Posi 1. I can't say that it feels better or safer than my Stormie opening every fight with Freezing Rain. The damage definitely feels better than the Stormie though, MMs still lend themselves very well to minimum battlefield attention letting the pets go ham while we focus on support. Other ATs have to choose whether to blast/control or support. - My visions of endless endurance are tempered by actual playing. Energizing just barely keeps up with my endurance and most of the time is unable to depending how far back I am from the chain's start. I've seldomly detoggled though, but mostly because I just take it easy spamming things (Energizing is the only true spam, I don't use the heal if everyone's on full HP). That said I only have the basic Panaceia/Performance Shifter +end slotted in. I still lack an accuracy/endurance/recharge to slot which will fractionally decrease the hefty cost eating through Energizing's benefit. - Few dead pets, but mostly because I follow after the meleers. What damage they take can be healed without a problem as long as it is incidental, but I found they crumbled easily despite all res and defense auras slotted in if I let them out of my sight or face tanking a boss. Not the Bruiser though, that one's a champ. - Sorcery plays trés bien with MMs. Under level 26 we have baby tanks who need the help. Spirit Ward makes a visible difference despite still being only with two slots. Enflame is a bit harder to quantify. It does a lot of little numbers and behaves like a damage aura so it's better to take it like that, but I'm unsure if it's really adding much to the kill speed. Regardless after level 26 and baby tanks no longer needing help I've taken to Spirt Warding and Enflaming the Bruiser instead and that has been working fine. - 35 is a long time to wait for Insulating, but a quick test with no slots sees it recharging in 7 seconds. ...yeah, between heals under 3 seconds and shields under 5 seconds I can see how we can make pets pretty much immortal. This is a nice departure from the norm. - Pets are still way too slow in following us. It's common to reach a dead end, toggle on Fly and backtrack, then twiddle my thumbs waiting for the pets to arrive. Group Fly might be worth it just to avoid this, and where possible get pets out of melee's way too. Forcing everyone into Fly mode will get old fast though, and I need two powers to reach Group Fly anyway which means I would have to choose between going deeper into Flight or not take Enflame. Considering the low numbers and the annoyance that is having to retoggle every minute it's a consideration.

All I find are people referencing how they tried the combo but no posted builds. I've been messing with one but lack the nuances since I haven't played a MM in ages. EA has a bit of a bad rep as not adding to damage, but that's fine by me. I don't intend to solo and it's going to be full Leadership + Sorcery pools with EA added in as a super survival tool and providing me with the endurance to sustain it. In the meanwhile pets are just passively doing damage for me while I ignore them 😄 Because it's for team play I'm not fussed/focused on uber survival since I'll be following an agro magnet that I'm Enflaming, Spirit Warding, buffing with Leadership and Faraday, recharge, damage, etc etc etc. I started messing with things but don't really have a goal and as such the build is a bit all over the place. No emphasis on defense but I still slot the +3% uniques, no epic shields but still grabbing resists, etc. Lets call this a first draft: full support while pets passively do damage. - I didn't want the Bruiser's Handclap to scatter things so I had to slot something to prevent that. - I am not going to fuss trying to sap, so no Shocking, Discharging or Difibrilating (who dares to die with all this support anyway?!). - I'm not interested in -res procs outside of pylon tests so exchanged it for a regular damage proc on the Enforcers. - A bit more accuracy for the Thugs plus the BU proc to help them (they need help) as well as the Overwhelming to cause KDs. - Gang War is just for AVs so I did not bother slotting with recharge. - On top of all the mitigation EA provides I've added Bonfire. Nothing is really going to be able to hurt the agro magnet I'm following after between hakuning the mob's tatas with Bonfire and 5 second shield drops, and 3 second heals, and Spirit Ward. Overkill, it's not like tanks are known for their squishyness, but heck, let me have this.

Completely immune to damage? Well, no, I mean, sometimes we get hit even through 45% defense 😄 But if it's what you want then go for it. I was guilty of not thoroughly reading the first post and how you really wanted the full ranged experience. I can't blame you, I used to be like that too.

Thanks for the -very- detailed breakdown, internet Sammich person. As a non Defender, non Stormie this was great to read. You do approach it from the solo angle which is not one I'm not intending to follow (squishies in a team are fine and all, but for solo let me go at it with one of my Fire Armor tanks), but for teaming we seem to have a somewhat parallel thinking. The lack of a purple (?) damage proc in LS definitely colored my views on the results, though ultimately I still think it belongs to an older time where things took longer. So far the Watery experience has been that AoE is a bit better as expected, but the ST is pretty damn mushy. I need to frankenslot Dehydrate and get some procs in because sub-Yin the STing was pretty much like tickling enemies (4-5 hits to kill a +1 minion). I do notice that teams are melting more with Water helping things along. Moar KDs never go amiss either. I just got Water Jet and I need to finish slotting it so I can give my impression on it.

You're a riot, Aero, I actually giggled reading it. Supremacy you got the gist of. Pets who are close (it's a biggo radius buff) get a bonus to accuracy and etc. Pet auras will add a +resistance aura to stack with Supremacy. There are two or three of these pet auras. This is one of them and this one in particular will give 10% to all resistances to your pets. Pets are so squishy that these pet auras are considered nearly mandatory. Mule powers are a term for powers picked or slotted solely because for the set bonuses and that we have no intention of using. For example if you glance at my Tanker builds you'll notice more often than not a Brawl four slotted with Kinetic Combat. While it may shock you to discover I don't actually Brawl mobs (:D) the four set is a hefty 3.75% to Smash/Lethal which helps reaching the 40-45% goal. Bodyguard mode is nearly hidden away. Everyone talks about it, but a new player may never even discover it, or like me, move out of Bodyguard without even noticing. The pets need to be in Defensive mode and NOT be sent to attack. In defensive mode up to 75% of the damage the MM takes will be shared by all pets thus reducing the HP droppage. Works best if having some sort of AoE heal to counter this, but regardless it makes a MM pretty hard to kill. In defensive mode the pets will only attack if attacked which can cause the pets to sit idly by our side if we are out of the way and the tank has all the agro, so it's more of a defensive move than something to sit in all the time. Not all procs are desirable because they go off only if the appropriate damage is used. Unlike a player a pet actually has 3-4 attacks in that one six slot power. Taking bots for example, not all the attacks do KB, so if slotting a damage proc from the KB IO sets attacks done that are not those who do KB will not trigger the proc. These forums are filled with information, but because of the nuances involved and if new it is safe (and saner) to just copy someone's build that fits your playstyle. For example despite being a damage loss I never take my MM's attacks. Not everyone does this.

Grav Kin, definitely. Once out in the advanced levels where people are chockful of IOs the benefits of Time dwindle but boosting damage and recharge are always welcome. Definitely grab Maneuvers (the rest of the Leadership powers are not particularly useful) and the Sorcery pool for moar support.

It's one of those things where the forest hides the tree. With all the damage floating around I never noticed if it went off or not, but with what you've said it probably never did it and I wasn't any wiser.

Since you wanted different builds: My attempt at making a super proc heavy Grav/Kin to overcome a Controller's lower damage. This came at the cost of recharge making Hasten only go to 131 with one Siphon, though the FF proc in Lift and a second Siphon stack should make it perma. I didn't care about losing the defense bonuses from boosting the Thunderstrikes. Lower content is done against +1 as a rule and is not difficult, furthermore on a Controller who locks enemies down. But the boosted Thunderstrikes can be attuned instead and only lose a small bit of damage. I quickly grew bored of not having AoE attacks and of the slow animations when doing content at 50 with the break neck speed, but it did what was asked and Impact + Containment + plethora of procs made attacks satisfying. Softcapped S/L/E. Could easily be turned into softcapped Ranged and Energy instead but I got no complaints with it.

*headscratch* Elec is one of the weaker sets due to the sapping tax, but you're praising it? What am I missing? The strongest ranged will be always Fire. You need to dip in once every 40 seconds for a nuke and then you move out of melee range. In exchange you get the strongest damaging set. When in doubt consult Mids and just check the damage of the nuke. Fire just does it all. But if you want better AoE you can go Water. The ST lags but the AoE is amazing. Plus you get a decent heal in Dehydrate that you can frankenslot so it heals for 20% of your HP every 3 seconds or so. Ice edges a bit ahead of Fire for single target if you proc out the attacks, but then greatly lags behind in AoE. So, again, Fire is the best that you go but you have a go-into-melee-range-once-every-40-seconds tax to pay for it. I wouldn't stress about this as any Blaster can be made to be softcapped to S/L. No Blaster needs to be glass.

You should be able to solo most AVs, but other than for bragging rights Envenomed Daggers speeds things up greatly.

When I tested the FF proc in LS yesterday I used it on grey mobs. 1/10th might have been generous. One minute after it had not killed any of them. Perhaps it was because it had no damage proc. (purple or otherwise), but it is also possible you've not used LS in an isolated experiment? Not lost with all the other Storm powers ticking but alone. I mean, I have no idea if you have or not, but if not then try it. Pick a pack of mobs over PI, drop LS, don't throw other damaging powers, then check if it kills something. Perhaps my lack of a damage proc is coloring things. In that scenario without distracting numbers I could finally see LS's AoE in action. It is as tiny as reported but it did hit several mobs at once as they congregated under the LS to reach me who was sitting in it. But it failed to kill anyone even after the substantial one minute duration has expired. Frankly LS would be fine with the cooldown of Tornado and roughly the same endurance cost. A nuke level of cooldown is way too much for what it does. If you could please give me an impartial report of your test? As for how I approach a fresh spawn: let the agro magnet jump in first (not always, as long as there are others with me I can open since mobs start flopping and even at 38 my defense is becoming okay), drop freezing Rain (INITIATE DOING THE HELICOPTER!), Ice Storm (damage), Tornado (erroneous belief it would start pumping FF procs, but at least it does for the initial cast). Start STing the harder targets. If the team is split or team AoEs are on cooldown and I see mobs are still alive after the three Storm powers are down I would drop a LS to help things and only then start the STing. In my (limited) experience so far as long as the agro magnet jumped in first mobs are not running away from the rains, their alpha is scattered, and the volley of AoEs from the team quickly mow things down to the bosses which I already am whittling down expecting this. This is on a +1 leveling team so obviously the mobs do not survive long, though in my experience +4 teams at cap (+3) chew them just as fast since it is when fully bloomed IO builds show up. Depending on how fast this goes I may have something like 5 seconds on my Storm cooldowns by the time we reach the next spawn which has me idling a bit and counting the seconds. I reckon with Water spamming FF procs in Water Burst these five seconds will probably go. I'll be leveling the water version later today and see how it goes.

Haven't. Just finished cooking the build and have been transferring the IOS from the Storm/Ice. I'll do a report on its thread later.

This bit of news does seem to make Water even more palatable then. Water Burst is another source of FF procs a lot more spammable than Tornado is. I may even consider removing the FF proc from it and placing a damage proc instead, though I suppose Water Burst would not be used for ST scenarios and Tornado would.

..that's actually a good point. Despite the overwhelming general advice to slot Tornado with FF I went and tested this and FF only procs on the initial cast and then never again in several attempts. ... with all the advice to slot FF in Tornado had this image of it proccing FF a few times more while it lasted. There were very few hits from the damage proc but at least they were there. Tested Lightning Storm. Same deal. Procced once on casting and then it did not proc again despite several attempts. It also brings how underwhelming LS is when it is unable to kill a few grey mobs before its substantial 60 second duration expires 🙂 Alright, I'm at a loss here or perhaps missing something. So all the advice on slotting FF procs on Tornado/LS is just to get the proc once every 20 seconds or so?

In the vein of the previous build this one keeps the capped resistances to S/L/E while having softcapped Ranged defenses. Hasten is at 130 seconds which ought to be perma with all the FF procs flying around. It should have slightly worse ST than Ice (obvious with Ice being the biggo ST monster) though the double Water Jet every 15 seconds helps it a little bit. It gets a bit of healing from Dehydrate (it has a bit of a bad rep but I, for one, welcome the 20%-healing-every-3-seconds (or 30% if Steam Jet is having its refractory period) which frees the healing ATO to net me another 10% recharge), while having a bit better AoE with Water Burst added to the mix as well as Geyser recharging in 36 seconds instead of Blizzard's 50 (no FF procs included). Things I do not like is losing Victory Rush. Sigh, I rather liked the gameplay involved and helping myself and the team. But because it demands two power picks before I can take it, Tactics being of dubious utility, and having several must-have-first powers Victory Rush got pushed to 35... which at that point I might as well take Power Sink. Until Power sink and for emergencies Recovery Serum will be there (alas, Victory Rush, you will be missed). Steam Jet, Aqua Bolt, Dehydrate, Aqua Bolt has a small 0.7-ish second gap for Dehydrate but nothing I would lose sleep about. This is the regular build with the full Stormie arsenal. Looking at Lightning Storm's grotesque endurance demands, nuke level cooldown, and very low damage output useful only for niche situations where the fights last long enough for LS to tick away (a rarity outside of AVS, I believe we can agree?) I have another build for my own personal use that.... does not have LS *ducks!* ... personal choice. I feel that Steamy Mist, Freezing Rain and Tornado give the Storm experience and all three get to be used in a regular basis unlike LS who might sit unused as a team steam rolls (furthermore steamrolling with our help keeping things safe and taking an extra 35% damage from Freezing Rain). So this is the build without LS. Same thing in its basics, but Gale loses the FF proc (its only use comes from under Yin's TF where it fills the attack gap by adding some CC. It's that or twiddling my thumbs waiting for stuff to recharge) since Water Burst now carries it. Power Sink gets better slotted since now there are slots to spare for it. There is a slight bit of extra recharge which makes me think that the small gaps warrant one less use of Aqua Bolt as it is so weak. Water Jet, Dehydrate, Aqua Bolt is good enough despite the 0.6 gaps here and there.

When does this ever happen though? It's spreadsheet talk. This situation only happens when fighting an AV which is 1% of our game time. Doing a T1 damage worth every 4 seconds means it takes a godly amount of uptime to make up for the cast time and endurance cost. Something like 30 seconds? Anything less and just keep on pumping the ST rotation instead. Heck, fighting AVs usually TAKES 30 seconds. There is a reason why Stormies shine on Pylon tests and that's because they take 1-2 minutes worth of taking stacked LS attacks to the face (plus Pylon tests loving -res procs which are of dubious gain in regular playing). No, this feels a lot like old design where the fights took longer and players spent more time on a pack of mobs before moving to the next. Like other game designs it has become obsolete. Shifting meta and all that. Sacrilegious as it may be I am thinking that dumping Lightning Storm is the better choice (for me). It does not see enough use and is one of the reasons Stormies have a rep of eating through their endurance bar. It would free a power pick and five slots to spread around. Certainly it looks amazing, very gorgeous, very much a pleasure to watch it throw lightning around, but it needs one of those changes the other servers made where the LS became mobile and follows the caster. Freezing Rain, Steamy Mist and Tornado are enough of the emblematic Storm experience to still warrant rolling a Stormie. Tornado gets cast on cooldown and helps with damage while doing soft CC and being a monster FF proccer , Freezing Rain boosts damage -and- keeps a team safe, Steamy Mist boosts a team's defense -and- resistance. With all this said I'm going to try a Storm/Water next. It keeps the capped resistances and softcapped defenses, ST seems roughly the same with proccage, better AoE, bit of self healing. I lost Victory Rush which makes me a sad goat. I liked giving myself and the team endurance, but strictly speaking a Recovery Serums costs 10k per charge and without Lightning Storm my endurance ought to be fine.

Reached level 38 after a marathon of TFs. My thoughts so far: The good: - Really good at locking down packs for my team. It may not be a Controller but for all effects and purposes it does a Controller's job just fine via Freezing Rain + Ice Storm all the way since Posi 1. What is not flopping is -slowly- trying to run away because of the fear effect of the rains. And then Tornado comes into play. It is easy pickings. - Noticeable meltage effect from Freezing Rain. Sure, it only shaves a few seconds, but that -30% res couples well with the power also acting as CC. - Snappy and pretty decent ST damage with the procced out attacks. I'm taking chunks out of the enemies even if it's not Blaster damage. A leftover Tornado and Lightning Storm that was dropped at the start also helps with the ST once its down to the harder targets. - The endurance is well in place with all three uniques in Health and the two slots in Stamina. By the time Victory Rush is nearly recharged I am usually in need of it again depending on how many Lightning Storms I threw. I have Power Sink for those last moments before Victory Rush is back up. I have still two toggles to get that will add to the drain of my endurance but so far things are self contained. I may have popped one single Recovery Serum so far. The not so good: - The vaunted AoE damage of Stormies is eh. Aim + Gaussian, Freezing Rain, Ice Storm and Tornado does not even kill grey mobs. They will just slowly run off the kill zone and then scatter without even half their HP off. I found it faster to kill grey mobs with ST attacks while doing the hunts for Citadel and Manticore. Seriously though, being unable to kill grey mobs is a bit eh... - Tornado is a bit of a disappointment. It's just a dot ticking for 8 damage (at my current level) which is gently tickling a mob's HP instead of helping to kill it. Mids says it has a 20y radius but it is difficult to say with all the numbers on the screen. City of Data to the rescue. The fear effect is indeed 20y wide, but the 'attack' is 7y radius which seems like the behavior I have seen. - Lightning Storm is another so. The cooldown of a nuke but the gentle caress shaving 1/10th of a even level minion HP every 4 seconds. Does this hit in AoE or purely ST? Delved into City of Data again. It has a tiny 5y radius that can hit five mobs. It does CC with the KD and the fear but things die too fast to warrant using it. Perhaps once at max level and running at +4. But by the time Freezing Rain + Ice Storm + Tornado is down I might as well continue hitting with my ST attacks that hit triple as hard as a single Lightning Storm bolt. It truly is a power for long fights as such I find I rarely bother putting it down during leveling. The purple proc may be a waste there since I use BiB far more often. It's upside is a stupendous 100y range for its attack, so it can be put down somewhere and it will keep on ticking as long as there is LoS. Veredict: Still enjoying the build. It is definitely not a solo character because even being able to survive with maxed resists and ranged defense it's AoE capacity is very very low. That said it feels safe. The Defender ATO heal proc happens often, the mobs scattering gives us time to pick them off and we can reapply while standing in the kill zone so mobs running back to hit us return to reapplied rains and a waiting Lightning Storm. The final slotting (BU proc in Tornado, purple damage proc in Lightning Storm) may further help. Of course I haven't used Blizzard yet since I just reached 38 but having it only every 50 seconds (less with FF procs) means I can't really 'rely' on it. But overall between a Controller and this I find this more entertaining with a blend of helping the team but still able to blast enemies with the super fast attack animations (a big annoyance with the Gravity Controllers/Doms was how the damage did feel ok/good with Impact, but dem slow animations meant things died before my hits would land).

I can't argue with you there 😄 Even back when I was substantially younger and thrived on grinding it eventually felt heavy to rinse and repeat the same bland radio missions.

I started in Issue 7 and I don't recall street sweeping being anything but done for funsies. I don't even understand what you mean by 'radio missions helped but weren't enough'. Why weren't they enough? Back then they were the bread of leveling. I seldom touched TFs (no merits rewards) and leveled pretty much on radio missions. They gave XP from killing mobs and then another chunk from completion, and we could team up which greatly sped leveling since without IOs even tough characters like Brutes and Tankers needed the buffs and heals and there were no armored Blaster as there are now. I'm not saying people did not do it though.

Problem with street sweeping is the same as running arcs outside of Ouro: we outlevel things. Running arcs without Ouro has me sent against enemies +4 or grey mobs. Street sweeping I did a few times to get a level or two but sadly we start, even level mobs, defeat, defeat, level up, defeat, level up, grey or green mobs. Keep looking... grey mobs, grey mobs... Move to another zone. Purple mobs. 😛

Reshuffled things so how to travel fast in the game is not a blurb lost in the misc section since it is pretty important and deserved its own section. Also updated with some changes the new patches brought.

Alright, another iteration of the build. I took some ideas and (stubbornly) stuck to others. It is not that the advice was bad (it is not, when needing advice contact a pro, but once having the advice make an informed decision) but the build is tailored to my playstyle. As such I placed both procs on my first attacks (thanks, @Onlyasandwich!) so that they will be spammed even as low as Posi 1 (unlike another poster remarked I did not feel late blooming in the slightest. Making Controllers envious with how spawns can be locked with Freezing Rain + Ice Storm, spot healing baby tanks with O2, not having a third attack so using Gale as a filler which in turn makes everything recharge faster. And this without fancy IO slotting yet. So I intend to exemplar for fun and even use the character to duo with a friend for lowbie arcs). Freeze Ray takes recharge since it is available much earlier and needs it baked in for early exemplaring, while letting BiB go the proc route since it comes after Tornado anyway and then rely on that one constantly thumping FF procs to help bridge the gap this introduces. Hasten worsened a bit to 130 seconds but the FF proccing will bridge this, softcapped defense remains, capped resistances remains, early Leadership is still on. I'm liking it so much that after a Grav/Sonic and Grav/Psi attempt I have settled as Storm/Ice being the RP powerset 'main' of the character. Little Glow is a go!