Sovera

A hundred plus DPS increase just for hitting skills in a row does seem worth it. The attack chain reliably applies the Achilles, Fury and Force Feedback proc too.

Since you're someone who is playing one at the moment, @nihilii, I'm trying to see the interest in Dual Blades. It has a clone of Follow up that animates slightly slower. It has a clone of Spin that does half the damage (same slotting Spin is at 343 and Typhoon's Edge is 160). Vengeful Slice takes the spot of Focus with both doing KD, but VS animates in 2.6 as opposed to 1.3 and does 50 damage less. Ablating Strike takes the place of Slash for the Achilles proc but does about 80 damage less. So the answer has to be the combos. What exactly does the whatchamacallit... Attack Vitals do? Could you tell me how much damage increase it brings and peculiarities it adds?

I've been on a alt leveling spree trying to find something better.... No luck yet. And then I try to play something else... I shelved my Kat/Rad I was trying when I saw me whittle mobs whittle mobs and I was thinking, '...man, One FU, one Burn, one Spin, things would be dead now and the boss at half HP...' This Fire/StJ has been playing pretty well though. Currently at 36. Run across a pack of enemies and stand on the other side targeting something with a bit more HP. There is this period where mobs go 'what the heck!? How did they get here!?' and don't move so there is no point in opening with an AoE just yet, so I was doing Initial Strike, Rib Cracker, Initial Strike. By then they finally wake up and run in my direction. Sweeping Cross to expend the three combo points, use Combat Readiness, use Burn, use Sweeping Cross again since CR recharges the combo points. Enemies mostly dead and dying as the Burn patch ticked and I kept unloading Sweeping Crosses. Just keep moving a bit to not be in the middle of the enemies since Sweeping Cross is a cone so it's better to be outside the ball of enemies. At 28 I swapped to Spinning Strike and its anemic AoE radius is bolstered by the Tanker buff making it decent now. I'm not using my big hitters yet but everything seems to be dying quickly as expected when we unload a ton of damage and stand in a sea of flames. Fire Armor really complements pretty much any secondary. StJ suffers in the AoE and Burn makes up for it. StJ suffers from the disconnect the old devs had throwing powers without a sense of progression (Spinning Strike ought to be at 20, and Shin Breaker ought to be at 28. Leveling to 35 to finally get two strong(er) ST attacks in a row is an odd choice) and Burn (alternating Fiery embrace and Combat Readiness too) helps the ST not feel anemic until then. But, in the end, instead of faffing around with one spender from 1- 28, then using a different spender from 28 - 38, then switching to a third spender from 38-50, while also waiting until 35 and 38 to finalize the ST rotation (never forgetting if we exemp down we need to re-do our skill bar 😄) we can just pick Claws, by level 20 we have the full foundation, by 28 we replace one attack. Well, StJ should (probably) be stronger in ST and while even with three combo points Spinning Strike is still half-ish the damage of Spin it does use the FF proc so more Burns and Fiery Embraces.

That does seem more elegant, but depending on your CU recharge it's adding an extra attack past it being ready to be used again. It also 'forces' a FF proc into CU. Ok, this is what I decided to do: - Added FF to CU. This gives the ST rotation an accelerator. Pre-CU Spinning Strike is the combo spender and it too has the FF proc. The loss in accuracy will be taken up by Focused Accuracy to reach the +3 cap. I already always play with FA since my endurance can take it so nothing changes. - Changed Heavy Blow for Sweeping Cross. This gives an extra AoE boost for extreme exemplaring (Synapse and lower can be comfortably done with Initial Strike, Rib Cracker, Initial Strike, Sweeping Cross and Burn providing a healthy push) as well as providing a spender. Come Yin and above and Sweeping Cross is relegated to being a mule (for me anyway, since I'm not into narrow cones as even with the Tanker buff it's still only about 75% wide) and Spinning Strike is the new spender all the way to 38 and Crushing Uppercut. Hasten stays at 136, not great, but not terrible, with the FF procs having to take up the slack. 40% defenses, 75% slow resist. Only Initial Strike, Rib Cracker, Initial Strike all the way to level 35 would be sad but fortunately Burn is a tremendous equalizer serving for both ST and AoE. Taking the advice from Nihilli the new end game rotation will be: (Combat Readiness) Crushing Impact, Shin Breaker, Burn (CU 2.4 seconds + SB 1.6 = 4 seconds, so Burn still enjoys the Gaussian), Rib Cracker, Shin Breaker. This is a comfortable rotation without gaps all the way to Crushing Uppercut where it has a 0.7 second wait, but, between CU having a FF proc (52% chance of going off I used the spreadsheet correctly) half the time it won't be there and anyone in the team throwing Ageless, or SB, or AM, or whatever mini SB the Elec Therapy set has, will bridge that gap. Using an extra Rib Cracker is also acceptable.

I've been pondering an StJ. The AoE goes up to 9y in Spinning Strike with the Tanker buff, which isn't super duper amazing but since it's not a PbAoE and rather a tiny ranged fireball effect it ends hitting more. StJ has been touted as a strong ST contender missing only in the AoE department. ... Enter Fire Armor. What blocks me a bit is the convoluted rotation since we hinge on Crushing Uppercut and Burn both having 7+ seconds of recharge. I kind of go around it by including Spinning Strike in the ST rotation. It's a bit heretical to add AoE skills for ST but, it does about the same damage as the other skills (costing a bit less than an extra half second to animate) with some good perks enticing its use: we can dump the FF proc and another -res proc in it freeing one FF slot from Crushing Uppercut. The convoluted rotation would be: - Starting fresh: Combat Readiness (Build-up, Gaussian proc), Burn, Crushing Uppercut (make use of the 3 combos Combat Readiness afforded, two purple procs with 90% of going off), Spinning Strike (it consumes combo points so this is the only moment to use it, FF proc and -res proc), Rib Crusher (native -res baked into the power), Shin Breaker (-res proc). Repeat. The goal is reaching 7.50 seconds. Using the above starting at Crushing Uppercut would be: 2.4 - 2 - 1.6 - 1.6 = 7.6. Burn is up at 7.5 so the rotation starts over. The problem with this is reaching Crushing Uppercut with only two combo points. According to Mids CU with three combo points would do 676 and with two combo points would do 625. This is why I complained about being convoluted 😛 Basically we either remove Spinning Strike and add another Rib Crusher (and then lose the FF proc which will need to be re-added to CU while also losing the -res in a ST situation. Adding the FF proc would mean breaking the Hectacomb set and more than the recharge it is the 15% accuracy that is patching things for the build) or add another Rib Crusher to the initial rotation making it go from an optimal 7,6 to 9.2. Of course that we shouldn't get too attached to the combo system anyway. Any miss will rob of a combo and it is better to use CU on recharge to expel the maximum per minute than to try to backtrack (and manage to keep track of combo points with an elderly UI). Zher build:

And that's why I hug Focused Accuracy. But hey, if your fully purpled out Brute can't handle it lemme know and I'll come save ya! *flees!*

Pretty much. I'm shelving the Katana/Rad (though I did not give it a fair trial either since I was just putzing around soloing Synapse). It's just too slow compared to the Fire/Claws (or even the Claws/Bio Scrapper). And since I've shelved the Fire/Kat since DA does not stack for Tankers I think my altitis is over for now.

So, basically, without a secondary to push things? 😛

Ugh. I haven't played Rad Armor in so long I forgot the basics. There I was testing the build by leveling it and I kept scratching my head at why Radiation Therapy did not fill my endurance. I had vague memories of my end bar filling up, so what was miss-... THEFT OF ESSENCE! Sacrificed the 5th LotG muled in Divine Avalanche (sacrificing the Touch of Death there is kinda valid as well since it only seems to have a 17% chance of going off). This puts Hasten at 130 seconds, but meh, between the FF proc and Beta Decay it should get close to perma. I've edited the previous post with the build.

Improved on the Kat/Rad a bit. Better slotting and Sting of the Wasp is a better choice than Gambler's Cut for exemplaring purposes. Decreased Hasten from 129 to 127 seconds and improved Slow resistance from 61% to 96%. Lost on EPS down from 4.15 to 3.77. It's because I've been harping on Fire Armor for weeks now 😄

I was talking about the Katana/Rad though, and there is no particular reason for it to be -that- much over a Katana/Dark Brute. I'm just being lazy as "#$% since I could spend two hours in the test server building it but I'm not that invested. I wouldn't do a /Fire Scrapper with mobs running away without an agro aura and then fleeing from Burn.

I'm just not sure if the damage won't be too low without a secondary to push things. If it does 3 minute times then that's a Tanker's time.

This is spectacular, Claire, thanks for sharing with us!

Want to try a Katana/Rad, Bill? After my disappointment at Divine Avalanche not stacking for Tankers I tried my hand at making a build for a Scrapper. In theory it would work for /Bio but DA will not cover the E/N hole in the resistances nor add defense to it either. Rad Armor isn't very offensive oriented for me though you can proc out Radiation Therapy for some extra oomph. It ended with some decent numbers if I may tout my own horn: - 70% to Smash, Lethal, Negative, Energy and Toxic. Only 28% for Psi. Built on purpose to use Barrier for the last 5%. It's not a Tanker's 90%, but Radiation Therapy every 20 seconds is Dark Regen's little cousin and Particle Shielding every 37 seconds. - 47% defense to Lethal and 45% to Melee with one tap of DA. 82% Lethal and 80% to Melee with three stacks of DA. Not accounting for Barrier adding another 5%. - 129 seconds Hasten, with a FF proc and Beta Decay to further help it. - A better way to apply the -res procs instead of relying on a toggle. - 4.15 EPS not accounting for both Performance Shifters and the Panaceia. Not that it matters much with RT. - Only 61% slow resistance. Slotting could be shuffled a bit. One slot in Stamina and use three Synapses. Use two Avalanche in Flashing Steel, etc. - 455% regen? Not a huge deal, but hey, 28 HP per tick.

Mmyeah, kinda puts a dampener on things. Though I guess 15% -does- free up a ton of slots otherwise dedicated to defense. I have my Hasten down to 126 which is a far cry from the usual. ...but yeah, without the overcapping some of the luster wore off.

I've been mislead. I thought Divine Avalanche stacked three times and it actually only grants the one 15% defense. Edit: Ah, it's on Scrappers that it stacks.

An hour and a half on T3! With an Invuln! With buffed enemies!

I had the same reaction. Spine Burst and Combustion from Fire Melee in Tankers is something that animates for much too long for the damage it produces.

If you want maximum protection look at Rad or Invuln (I vote for Rad for the varied utility, but Invuln is stupidly sturdy. Rad just examplars better and has more toys). There is actually a thread about it a bit lower down. Wanting maximum defensive value is perfectly acceptable, but, don't expect large damage in return. Just as metric (not because it is something that matters, but it serves as a measuring stick) there is a test we call a pylon, and an Invuln will usually put it down in 7-9 minutes. Fire Armor pushes things to around 3-4 minutes. I personally just want to be tough enough. For example, I soloed without deaths at maximum difficulty one of the end game taskforces. At that point is more sturdiness even needed? Would more sturdiness make a difference? If I already did not die being more sturdy would mean... I would not die harder? Instead I want to double my damage output (an Invuln would find it nearly impossible to duplicate the soloing I mention since with half the damage they would very difficultly be able to kill the end boss(es)). This is me though, personal choices and personal playstyle and etc. As for certain mobs debuffing defense yes. Each hit will shave about 7% defense off. If we are exactly at 45% then only 5% of the hits will go in. But once the first hits go in they shave 7% and we no longer are at 45%. That means it is now easier for more hits to happen, and they will continue shaving more and more defense. There are only two ways to combat this (three if I am to be pedantic): - Have a power set that has resistance to defense debuffing. Invuln has a little bit of this, Rad none at all, Fire none at all. SR has so much it is simply impossibly to lower its defense. - Have a lot and lot of defense that the 7% being shaved off still keep us above 45% (Invuln is a beast here since it gets -more- defense the more enemies are around). This eventually fails but depending on the duration of the fight it might make the difference... - ...which leads to the third way to combat this which is kill things dead before they kill you. Having defense being debuffed is not a big deal for Rad, Invuln and Fire since they are resistance based powers. Even with defense debuffed they are still negating 80-90% of the incoming damage. Rad Armor has a quick recharging heal (that triples as endurance recovery and can be slotted for damage) as well as a big absorb shield. Fire has a fast recharging heal. Invuln just has one heal that recharges in a minute (to be fair it hardly needs it once decently slotted). Now regarding your last question I would do neither SR/MA nor SR/Staff. SR by itself reaches huge defense numbers and does not need MA or Staff to get more defense. SR on a tanker is actually pretty sturdy, buuuut, it lacks a heal and lacks an endurance recovery power. These are things you'll miss out on though inspirations can take over. I would say a Rad/Claws or Invuln/Claws. Claws starts early, plays well, animates fast and examplars well. Martial Arts is not bad either with early AoE and etc. Make your choice and when you do don't feel shy to request a build since it is much better to get some tips on how to build so you can experience the game. And then, later, once you get the hang of it, you can make your own builds tailored to your playstyle. Just keep in mind what I said about being just tough enough to tackle content. If you intend to solo and explore the game killing things at twice the speed will be more entertaining than sanding enemies to death. At least level one Fire/Claws to 20 so you can have that benchmark to compare.

Fire/Katana has been a travel on FIRE (hehehe). Blitzed the leveling route completely. The only downside was leveling with only DA and Flashing Steel and neither are meant to be ST attacks which visibly shows. Burn carried the show. And I haven't touched an inspiration since Yin. I've also been thinking about the exemplaring problem. If we are at max level we have no purpose to give Gambler's Cut and Sting of the Wasp since Divine Avalanche, Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly make a complete ST rotation. If we are low level we have no access to Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly. Ergo if we don't mind spending TWICE THE CASH we can use the dual build system for low level (taking and slotting Gambler's Cut and Sting of the Wasp) and have a regular level 33+ build with Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly. And i could recover the slots from Flashing Steel for the 33+ build since Burn + Lotus Drops is enough AoE for me while filling with DA (keep defense up) and GD (mini AoE with FF proc). This would be daunting for a new player but for us with a billion in cash in bank it's a feasible solution.

The end game has Incarnates that cover the weak points of a build. Fire's squishyness marries itself very well with Barrier for a panic button when needed. Most of the time the set needs nothing to help itself but it has a weakness against psi attacks and too much defense debuffing. In both cases we can play, live off our heal, and when things look like they are really going pear shape, then use Barrier. Prior to end-game we don't have these fancy Incarnate options but the game is not run at max difficulty (+4) and for +1 difficulty nothing hurts enough. This isn't a special thing about Fire Armor, it's just what you get from playing a Tanker. What comes next (since all Tankers can and do this) is killing things in an orderly manner that hurries things along. Just keep in mind everything -will- work. Shield/MA and etc all will do their job and be sturdy. You can do all of these and ought to try them for kicks because 1000 slots for characters. I've tried most of the combos you speak of and in the end I just ended up liking this particular build more than the others. Selling Fire/Claws (but take all I say with a grain of salt because what I'm actually saying is that this build and playstyle fits -me-): - By level 20 you have all your tools. Everything from 20 and onwards is just more icing on the cake (such as replacing your weak level 1 attack for the much stronger level 28 attack). This means you have Burn and Spin and Follow-up. You wanted damage? You got damage. Dead things are not hurting you back. - Level 20 and you're set. Are you level 50 and want to help a friend run Positron at level 15? You still have all the tools (Spin, Burn, Consume, Healing Flames, Follow-up, Hasten) and just need to use the weak level 1 attack instead of the level 28 one. - Follow-up is not to be understated. Despite being a weak attack it's fast and adds a stacking 30% damage boost on top of more accuracy. This helps in the low levels when we lack slots. While it is weaker than a Build-up power it is on all the time. So even in the low to mid levels you're walking around with an extra 60% damage under your belt and it shows when you start a fight by stabbing something with FU, net yourself 30% damage, and then drop Burn and Spin. Now the thing is, if you're new and have no cash and are starting with nothing to your name then you'll be squishy, but, inspirations can and should take over, and once you start doing TFs money starts coming by selling merits and you can start buying the things you need to improve. The leveling guide of the Fire/Claws has what you ought to slot first. Some things may look like they cost a lot but that's only until you start selling your things (refer to the newbie guide). Just doing both initial task forces (level 8 and level 11) will be 5.5 mill ish. Not a fortune but you can buy generic IOs for all your powers and then as you progress buy the better stuff. For example the -second- taskforce will be near 12 million to your name once you sell the merits. If you decide to play on Everlasting (it's easy and gratis to swap servers, can do so 5 times a week) let me know and we can pew pew together.

Allow me to revise my 'Katana is horrid exemplaring'. I couldn't find enough people and duoed Posi 1 and it *tore* through the TF at +0x8. It's not a feat, but, it kinda is when done in the low levels with few slots and against said '-ToHit and then mage bubble making us unable to hit things and then we are whittled to death' which never happened. Divine Avalanche and Burn (with two procs and BU + Gaussian) carried us hard, but an honorable mention to Flashing Steel that let me me BU, FS, Burn, FS. Boss? What boss? Surrounding enemies? What surrounding enemies?

As mentioned above nothing will feel sturdy at those levels. By level 30-ish you should barely even touch your inspirations. Once you are max level and exemplar down to the low levels you carry all of those slots (if not all of the bonuses) and you will notice how much sturdy you are compared to how you were at the same level. My own advice is my favorite character: Fire/Claws. You will be study on the simple paradigm that you're killing the enemies too fast for them to be hurting you. And at level 30-ish you'll be able to not use inspirations at all. In the low levels you -should- be using (and abusing) inspirations. Purples (called Luck and variations of Luck) are more invaluable to surviving than greens since purples prevent damage. When in trouble eating two or three of these will prety much make you unkillable and you can easily replenish them for peanuts. I have both the link to the Fire/Claws build in my link (including 'cheap' leveling build and tips how to slot and what to pick first) as well as a guide for new players and how to make money with selling merits.

I loathe Devastating Blow. Too long animation and it does not feel impactful enough. But I'm the person who still does not feel ET is impactful enough to warrant the 2.9 animation. As for Avalanche I have no room for it. Avalanche -does- give better endurance (0.28 to 0.34) but I need the 6% Negative. If I changed Burn's slotting (but that would be heresy), or Irradiated Ground (but half the reason for taking Rad Melee is taking and proccing IG). I did find a slotting that allowed me to keep it all but then my accuracy dipped too much (even with Tactics toggled on) so it was a no go. Siphon does heal a nice bit, but it's one of those things ultimately without much use because when we take damage we take a lot of damage very fast (debuff situations). In moments like those what helps survival is -preventing- damage from happening (Parry, Divine Avalanche). Even nice fat heals like Siphon don't change things since they don't keep up with the damage. For example I tanked a duoed Market Crash and the last boss was not a problem (except the time I tried to DPS to the max and cut things too close by letting my HP reach 700HP instead of disengaging at around 1k as I usually do (but I wanted to do a leetle beeet more damage!) and the boss stunned me through my toggles and killed me. I was literally awash in mobs plus the AV and his auto-hits, and it was fine with my AoE killing the adds while I whittled the AV. And this was on the Fire/Claws. Would the heal from Rad Melee add anything? We have very few situations where we are slowly whittled and see death coming (exception: low level CoT where the -ToHit debuff mixes with the mage bubble for us to be unable to hit a single thing (thus unable to kill anything), and then the mages drop the -defense pulsing ground effect thing and we are whittled no matter how many inspirations we quaff. Running from the debuffs is the only solution). What we do have is quick damage such as reaching -30% or -50% (or in Fire Armor's case, fighting psi enemies such as Carnies) which is when 90% resists do nothing since the damage comes in too fast. At that point heals only cover our asses as we run off to let the debuff expire. Overall Katana might be the best pairing (horrid exemplaring though) because Divine Avalanche allows to remove a lot of the slotting placed in defense. It does open a hole in Smash damage though, and while most ranged damage is Lethal as a rule Energy/Negative is paired with Smash such as any energy blast, sonic attacks, some psi and etc. Without Ranged and without Smash we'd become open to ranged attacks, but this might not be a big problem since most factions are heavy on melee, and if we engage in melee they start hitting in melee instead of continuing to hit with ranged attacks (notable exception in those damn ICU(?) end game robots). When Katana uses one tap of Avalanche to softcap Lethal and Melee the second tap puts it 60%, and the third at 75%. While it can still be stripped it's a large buffer to overcome in a damage heavy build that will melt opponents.

I had to answer my own question. Same set up as before but switching Gloom for Contaminated Strike: - 3:20 - 3:53 - 3:35