Sovera

People need to stop saying we can go at Fly + old AB speeds with just new Fly. We COULD if we dedicate slots to Fly. And not everyone has the slots for such a niche endeavor. Without those slots its just 61mph. What we DO get is faster speeds that old Fly + AB with Fly + EM (from 72mph to 87 mph) then further pushed to 102mph with build in new AB.

That's my own reaction to it. And there is no point in mentioning 'old' AB because it is out of context. Old AB exists in the old travel power setting. New AB exists in the new travel power setting. In a vacuum new AB transplanted to current game is a benefit. But when all the other pools got their own benefits as well AB just stinks. But, yes, it's still better than what we have now which is why I have stated my piece in the early pages of the thread and have not brought it up again. And, again, the old paradigm that flight is 'better' could do with re-examining when all travel powers can pick a flight pack for 5k and get tridimensional movement for perpetuity but Flight has no equivalent to increase their speed since caps prevent it. I'll insist that people pick their travel power for theme more than they do for min maxing. While not everyone roleplays most people still have a theme and stick to it. And from that point of view do we need to balance powers for the min maxing angle?

They are different beasts, Bopper. One I use between missions where my endurance costs is only the one of my toggles. When I arrive to my destination I toggle it off and off it remains until I need to head to the next mission. Evasive maneuvers is meant to be used all the time. Not between missions.

True, but since I do want the LotG I'll pick it, but it's no different from me picking Vengeance. It's not for a pressing desire to actually use it on dead team members. That said I prefered picking and slotting Afterburner. I'm not yet sure I will actually use Evasive with its 'modest' cost of 0.52, AKA twice the cost of a regular toggle.

With the caveat that anything is survivable with experience (running away if too debuffed, killing problematic mobs first, killing everything before they kill us), and anything is survivable in a team since everything is dead in seconds, then Invulnerable or Shield. Ice is also very good at staying alive though I don't play it myself. Stone is the most survivable, but it's masochism. I know there are stone lovers out there and I respect your life choices, but I won't tell new players to go stretch on a rack while someone dressed in leather whips them. 😜 You're still seeking the most strong best perfect super tank, Strider, and that's fruitless. It depends on how you play, how wary you are. At some point everyone will die because of this or that. Some combos can AFK in the middle of combat and not care (invuln), some need to use clickies to survive (rad), others will kill before being killed (fire). If you're having fun with your Dark then carry on. You'll be fine.

It's a bit tight, but one FF proc in both mallets and Mids say it should be kinda alright. Until Seismic Smash opens there will both be gaps and usage of Stone Fists. But we'll see. Currently PLing her to 22 so I can start with Posi.

Good job, Jimmy. Is evasive maneuvers still 0.52? because I wouldn't rank that as modest.

I would have loved to love Stone Melee, but then I look at its only AoE and go Ogodwhy. Double the animation of Dragon Tail (one of the weakest AoEs) and 8 points less damage. Y u do dis, devs? But not gonna lie that I'd love to just lay the wham with the hammers. Hmm.. I can do Seismic Smash, Stone Mallet, Heavy Mallet, Stone Mallet. I'll go roll one since I have a little volcano kitteh.

I don't want to put too much of a fine point in it, but, considering the problems pets get mostly arrive in the form of the big level shift that steals damage and durability, bragging about a +1 solo ITF is a bit eh. I have stopped playing MMs a long while back when softcapped defense only meant they survived longer but would suddenly be vaporized. If the poor things got agro they just disappeared. Not ALL of them. But then there's what others in this thread have mentioned. Welp, the Arsonist is dead, welp. I'm not going to waste my summon +upgrade just for one. Keep playing, another one dies. Ok, I'll summon now. Summon, upgrade. Resume playing. Argh, now another one died. The fact is, saying that the upgrade powers are a downgrade and better not used for some of the minions tier is NOT A SOLUTION! It is a PROBLEM that UPGRADING a minion makes it perform WORSE. Clever ruses like not upgrading are contrary to the way the game is intended to be played. The fact is that the team will have to give MMs a pass so that upgrades are indeed upgrades. Now the fact the upgrades are not automatic also means the MMs get screwed in a myriad ways when exemplaring. They get fewer minions at certain cut points, and those pets don't get powers from the upgrades. It's a double whammy. Other ATs simply don't get access to their powers exemplaring, but MMs don't get access to their powers AND become objectively weaker on top of that.

You can solve that last problem with a keybind that summons them at your feet. /bind lshift+1 powexec_location forward:3 little bots /bind lshift+2 powexec_location forward:3 heal bots /bind lshift+3 powexec_location forward:3 big bot Change to the actual names of the pets and whatever keybind you'd like to use than left shift + number. If someone happened to read my posts during the Tanker patch they would know I advocated for some sort of reverse KB PbAoE replacing Taunt. For all purposes Fold Space. So, people might think I would be all over Fold Space since it is very much what I'd like? No. Never picked it. Have no intentions of picking it up. Having to use the clunky Teleport who is useless for anything but crossing zones is a hard no and then I need to pick two useless powers. Hard no. For those who like Combat Teleport and Teleport kudos to you though, I watch your use of Fold Space with -deep- envy. Trust me.

You don't pick AB. It comes for free when you pick Fly. You may decide not to use it though and that's your prerogative.

Piecemeal best... meal? *zoombie noises*

If you feel like trying something dumb you can either go with EM/Dark and keep on stunning everything via AoEs + ST + Oppressive Gloom, or go Ice/Dark and dropping an Ice Patch (soon to be 1.5 seconds instead of 3.4) keeping you safe while you're hurting things. While Ice is not super in the ST Frost alone carries it. I frankly prefer not to take Frozen Aura since it detracts from Frost, but heck, I take Frozen Aura anyway (even though I don't like using it, and sometimes don't).

It's been explained. It uses a pseudo pet. If you'd slot the ATO there then the pseudo pet would be the one getting the buff. So it cannot be done. Just be happy you get Irradiated Ground, it's the one thing that makes me pick Rad Melee every few months before I drop it with a shudder at the rest of the set's animation's and their times.

I'll be honest and say not to hurt yourself. It's not particularly good at AoE despite the number of AoEs it boasts of, and the single target is pretty damn subpar. People just tend to look at all the AoEs and drool, but in practice it's better to have fewer but better ones, I.E Claws/Bio is an absolute blender in AoE while also boasting of amazing ST.

The problem I see with these arguments usually lays that 'my X is super survivable' does not say against what. Heck, Scrappers are survivable. Throwing ourselves at a LGTF is not exactly difficult. It's all bland energy, smash, and some small lethal from those few dribbles that do sword attacks. Without debuffs what is dangerous about it? Arachnos aren't particularly hard if not getting blinded (Focused Accuracy is a near have-to-pick) or recovery debuffed. But they suffer from being a varied faction. Just a few doing hard debuffs is not complicated to deal with if the rest are doing bland attacks. Like Carnies. Only some do psi, the rest are basic fire, smash, etc. As long as having high enough defense to avoid their death and/or recovery debuff protection they are not difficult. On the other hand the... seers, I think they are, are all psi, and the way they ignore defense they don't seem to be tagged as Ranged so without specific psi defenses they will hurt, bad, especially when we get a full spawn of them unleashing the alpha. Where problems come is anything that debuffs. Cimerora, most of DA, what ever other faction like the bots we find in Tina's arc that also do -defense. That stuff will eat through most 'tough' characters. Dark Armor is propped up heavily by Dark Regen, Bio by Ablative, but even Dark Regen on a 15 second timer is NOT enough to survive jumping into a Cimerora pack of +4x8 enemies debuffing defense deep into the negatives. 15 seconds just won't recharge fast enough. That's mostly my reaction to 'oh yeah, Bio is super tough'. Against what? Council? Rikti? My experience with it is surviving the easy content and then scampering against debuffers to let the debuffs expire before coming back to kill the rest. On a Tanker with bigger numbers and a solid damage secondary I can see Ablative propping things up until most things are dead as long as the minions are swiftly dealt with. But I'm not sure how it deals with things like the cyst packs who both strip defense and then hit at a Bio's weak energy/negative resists. Oppressive Gloom neutering minions helps. Being in a full team that unleashes a flood of AoEs helps. Staggering Judgements helps. Playing in a team reduces the risk in 70% since everything dies in seconds.

Nayreia best reia.

Something like this I guess. 40% defense to most, use Barrier to get the last 5%. Smashing and Lethal resistances are near capped with one enemy in range, two stacks of the Tanker ATO and Barrier's 5%. You'll want to do something like Devastating Blow, Bone Smasher, Radiation Siphon, Bone Smasher. Focused accuracy is mostly a mule but also to deal with the end game annoying mobs who do blinds and -tohit debuffs. You don't need to have it toggled on all the time but endurance shouldn't be a problem with DNA Siphon.

KM's low key strength is in how you can slot a Force Feedback proc in its AoE. In AoE situations this is constantly going off which speeds the whole build. But neither KM itself nor DA really have anything worth speeding (except Burst itself) with Dark Regen already in a very low timer (though it would reach some absurd 10-11 seconds or so Dark Regen is already at a decent 13-14 seconds to begin with). Burst's AoE KD is also some easy soft mitigation with the mobs bouncing off their butts. KM's damage is low key decent with a pretty darn heavy proc-based approach to make up for this (I actually have a Fire Armor/KM build in my signature you can pick apart for that purpose) to make up for this. I remember getting some 3:30 pylon times which is 30 seconds worse than my current FA/MA, but it also only had one -res proc where MA had two. I've moved on from -res procs due to not finding them useful for play outside of pylon tests and I don't know how both would compare in terms of damage without that advantage but we can see it's close. KM also primes for fast animations outside of Burst. The idea is to stick with the T1, T2 and T3 since the T9 has an absurdly long animation time. The rotation was, if I remember correctly, T3, T1, T2, T1. Repeat. The fast animations are, IMO, more pleasant since if we whiff it doesn't hurt as much. On the other hand we are speed maniacs to kill something. It exemplars better with all attacks available soon, even though Burst is only for level 28. Perhaps you can squeeze in Repulsing Torrent and with an Overwhelming Power slotted in you'll have two AoEs you can spam and keep mobs on their butts. Repulsing Torrent has a pretty narrow 45 angle though, and even with the Tanker inherent it will only go to 60-ish. It's too narrow for me so I didn't take it, but I had Burn to lean on. EM is the current best ST set we get. Without -res procs my current downs a pylon in about 4 minutes (3 with) and EM did it in 3:15 without -res procs. But, it also has a pretty good interaction with Dark Armor in that the stuns peppered though EM (all the attacks carry a chance for it, including 30% in the AoE) stack with DA's Oppressive Gloom stun. So you can jump into the fray and have a good chance to be surrounded by stumbling mobs as they get repeatedly stunned by AoE and ST. ST alone is enough to make even AVs stumble drunkenly when outside of purple triangles, and Oppressive + Whirling has enough to straight off stun a boss as well (not reliably since only 30% chance for a stun in Whirling, but math backs up that it is pretty damn good mitigation). EM's AoE is pretty poor if you can't fit both PbAoE and cone. Just Whirling is an exercise in frustration to whittle down +1 mobs, but I've reached a point I can't play anything than Fire Armor to press a button and melt half a spawn so take it with a grain of salt. The cone has a huge 120 angle making it a lot more appealing to fit into the build. It also carries a 20% chance for stun, so, again, Whirling = chance for stun, Power clash = chance for stun, Oppressive Gloom I'm not sure if it's a chance or an automatic thing, though by itself it will only work on minions. EM has some long animation in TF but the rest is fine. The rotation I was using is Total Focus, Bone Smasher, Energy Transfer, Barrage (Energy Punch would be better but I could only fit it at level 30 which defeats the purpose), Bone Smasher. Repeat. That said DA doesn't hugely need mitigation when it heals to full on two mobs so both secondaries are down to what you want.

With AB on: With AB off: I don't have Swift slotted.

No Bopper, apologies but you may be misremembering. Looking at my own character at level 50 power details using just Fly the speed is hardcapped at 58mph without any (direct) slotting (I have the usual little speed increases incidentally found in sets, not something I worked for) or gimmicks involved. Fly + AB without any (direct) slotting puts it at 72.95mph. The jump pack caps it at 87mph.

Fly alone does not make us faster than old fly + AB (unless you're thinking of new Fly slotted up, but who has spare slots for that anyway?). Old Fly + AB = 72.95 New Fly alone = 61.49 Fly + Defensive maneuvers = 87-ish

The new Afterburner will detoggle (and not incur a cooldown) when zoning. I sort of doubt it is on purpose albeit it's not unwelcome.

I also don't much see the point of Defensive Maneuvers. It's way way way too expensive for what it does. 0.52 for knockback resistance (someone correct me if wrong but all this does is diminish the distance we are knocked back, but since we are flying we are not knocked back, we just do a lil somersault in the air, so what does knockback resistance actually do in this scenario?), a bit more speed, and defense that disappears if in combat. What is the use of this if I can use Fly combined with Hover for 0.46, get more speed, lose the defense but what is the point of defense if not fighting, and the knockback resistance. Perhaps if it was knockback -defense- which -prevents- knockbacks, yes, but at 0.56, booyah. It would need to have a pretty damn good magnitude to compensate the cost (again, who has the slots to faff around with endurance reduction on a niche power?). I'm happy to still have my LotG mule choice since i wouldn't have the pool choice to pick other lotG mules, but the way it is built now it is just that. a mule, for no purpose in actual game. Edit: Booper answered above of the use that knockback resistance has when combined with KB protection. On a Tanker it turns 4 KB protection into 8. Still, not all builds can afford another 0.52 toggle (and most builds already have a near full tray of toggles to begin with).

Detoggle Hover when you have Fly on? It's how it works currently. If need a simple bind allows to alternate Fly and Hover.