Sovera

@Bill Z Bubba! @Bill Z Bubba! Check this out! 😄 Fire Armor/Rad melee, all T4, no clickies. Using Reactive 75% chance of fire DoT: - 3:02 - 3:10 Using Degenerative: - 3:38 (bad luck streak here) - 2:59 (zoly crap, finally beat the 3 minute barrier) Both are still super close together beating the common knowledge that Degenerative was supposed to be the best option VS pylons. And just for luck Degenerative + Assault 65% chance: - 2:20 I used a rotation of Burn, Gloom, Radioactive Smash, Radiation Siphon, Radioactive Smash. Fit very neatly together. Gloom could be exchanged for Contaminate and free a butt load of slots for only the small price of going from 389 damage to 139. 😛 The numbers are not super incredible since they fit the norm (both Martial and Claws had times ranging between 3:15-3:30. Even EM had a 3:30 time, BUT, consider the set has the utility of a built-in heal AND it does passive AoE! Astoundingly good passive AoE. It might seem I'm being facetious with the AoE claim but anyone with a Fire/Rad knows of what I talk where Burn + burn patch + damage aura + Irradiated Ground is melting stuff around us while we focus on a boss. The ugly: I stripped the build so much to reach my goals that for once it actually detoggled while facing the pylon. I had to use Recovery Serums to do the tests as Consume did not keep up and I didn't even have Tough or Tactics turned on (not much reason to use Tactics anyway, other than niche reasons, as it is a mule). In multi target scenarios Consume kept up better but it was still touch and go waiting for Consume to finish recharging. Which makes sense since the build is so stripped down (damn those Kinetic Combats). There's room for improvement in that aspect as even a single Kinetic Combat being taken off would help with slotting. It might finally be a case of taking Cardiac. MAYBE. Because as long as Recovery Serums and Consume can be alternated (Recovery Serum is not perma) and the Serum is worth 10k a charge there is no reason to GOT TO SUCH EXTREMES! I also removed Atom Smasher since I needed all the slots I could scrounge. I went to test in a Comic Con and it cleared well but having Atom Smasher would have helped.

No clickies. I always cheat and create a SG to get the KB protection from the base empowerment.

Slotted the Fire/EM. Took it to the test server and T4ed it. No clickies used. Reactive Interface = 4 minutes. Degenerative = 3:28 minutes

And that's why I'm stopping. Nothing beats this combo as an all arounder and my brief altitis burst has shown this. This is another thing. Mids' numbers always confused me. What do they even mean? When I use them it is just to compare since they never seem to match what I get in game.

Looking at Fire/Katana the only thing I can really point a finger is at how badly it exemps. One tap of Divine Avalanche softcaps and more stacks will just help with defense debuffs. This in turns frees so much slotting that Hasten goes down to 125 seconds. Easy rotation with a 0.2 gap of Divine Avalanche, Soaring Dragon, Golden Dragonfly. Nice place for a FF proc. But dat exemplaring. All the way up to 35 with only Flashing Steel, Divine Avalanche and Burn. We -could- take and/or slot the T1/T2, in a world with infinite powers and slots, but if exemped to at least 33 those powers and slots would gather dust uselessly.

Using Barrage would free a power letting me take Vengeance to mule my last LotG. Still something to ponder. As for ET and Mids I've no idea. It starts as 495 with no Musculature and no slots. Jumps to 918 with five Hectacomb (but no damage proc), 1052 with Musculature, then 1171 with Hecta's purple damage proc and Touch of Death. Then 1630 with Fiery Embrace, and finally 2595 with both FE and BU.

Finally dinged 50 on the Fire/EM. Didn't respec into the final build yet, but I hope it picks up because ET is still not impressive at all despite the Mid numbers. I'm not even looking at log numbers but the simplest thing of popping BU (with Gaussian) and then hitting with ET and going meh at taking 1/5th of a +1 boss' HP. With the hype and the Mid numbers... dunno. That said six Mako (one lethal proc) while leveling is not five Hectacomb (purple damage proc) plus a Touch of Death damage proc and maybe that's what it needs to feel more impressive. But that's like Burn. It's fine while leveling but it really takes off with two damage procs, one of them a purple.

It's barely ahead of EP! Or even Bone smasher!

Away with your low DPA TF!

According to Mids EP ends, fully slotted and procced, as doing 245. Barrage with the same slotting has 318. Using EP will give me a 1 second gap. With EP animating in one second I -could- use one extra EP making it three EPs for 735 as opposed to two Barrage for 636. Burn, EP, ET, EP, Bonesmasher, EP, Burn.

The pylons will hurt everybody since if I recall correctly they pulse an auto-hit toxic DoT that stacks (but don't quote me) so if you feel your DM/SR is being shived in the kidneys while you're hitting it you'd be absolutely correct. As a rule I hit Barrier before engaging the pylons and the first and second don't hurt much, while the third forces me to use a heal. Dying isn't something that happens. As for the clockwork, he is not a menace. I have a big psi hole but he does not hit hard enough or often enough to overcome my healing. And, again, Barrier before the start of the fight does wonders. The game lacks an Incarnate version of Barrier/Ageless that goes 'click it, you're now at damage cap and then it dwindles until you're at 20% damage for the last minute'. If there was there would be a paradigm shift where we could build sturdy for everything and then use it for burst. (I'm not actually advocating for such an incarnate as it would be a terrible thing for the game's health). Not having it we have the opposite: build for damage and when in trouble use Barrier to be safe. In your case you can be really tough with SR, but then lack that Incarnate I mentioned above to push your damage. To be clear I don't use Barrier on CD to reach 45% even. I tend to do whatever content just as I am and it's only if in trouble that I pop Barrier. Even with Barrier I wouldn't be able to solo the ambush on top of the hill at the first ITF mission without the Incarnate invulnerable pet to share agro (where Invuln and SR would laugh at said ambush), but we can agree that 20+ +3 bosses that debuff recharge and defense is not a common situation (and again, Incarnates help me pass it).

I went to look at it again and I'll stick with Barrage. I have a tight rotation of Burn, ET, Barrage, Bone Smasher Barrage that juuuust barely covers Burn's recharge. Using EP would just have me use a weaker attack and get a one second gap.

Uh, I thought it was Barrage. Well, okay then, time to tweak the build.

You wouldn't have like Romulus and the fluffies either. On my Bio Scrappers it's auto-hit, auto-hit, use Ablating, auto-hit-auto-hit, use DNA Siphon, auto-hit-auto-hit, start using greens while waiting for Ablating to recharge. At some point the greens end -_- Same with the seafood squad as they ablate the elemental defenses and leave us with the 10-20% Negative resists to handle their damage. As I only played Bio for a while the ITF was my big Achille's heel and I used to be astounded at seeing people soloing the cysts.

Used it as filler until ET.

Speaking of EM, I finally reached 35 to get ET. ... Not impressed. After all the brouhaha I was expecting more oomph when I six slotted it out of something that locks me out for three seconds. I mean, yeah, I can see it does nice damage, but it also costs me three seconds. I guess it needs two damage procs since with the recharge and animation the purple proc will have a 90% chance and a regular one 77% so that will add more. Other than that EM has been a pleasant ride. Definitely not the worst variant. Burn helps with EM's weaker AoE and also as a filler. At the moment I find I can Burn, ET, Bone Smasher, Barrage, gap, Burn. But I'm still leveling and hard on slots.

Funny you should say that because I have found nothing that beats Claws so far. I've been on an altitis spree and the only one that truly tickled my fancy was Rad Melee with the passive AoE allowing to just focus on STing bosses. Tbh I'd be all over it if only Irradiated Ground was at level 20 instead of 28, but it is as it is. Even so I don't much like the slow animations but the AoE sells it to me (and the heal). I haven't found a way to fit Gloom in and not lose my defense caps, but eh, not fussed since 28 instead of 20. I looked at Fire/Staff and played it for a bit (25-30) and it felt like a spiritual successor with the early AoE, except it takes both cone and PbAoE to match Spin, and then lacks good ST moves (using Gloom is an option but Gloom does not generate combo points, and Burn certainly helps a -lot- with Staff's low ST damage, but again generates no combos). Fire/SS is truckloads of damage, but dat late AoE and then the Rage crash saps my will to play. One thing I'm realizing as I play is that Fire Armor is to Tankers what Stalkers are to certain power sets. SS only has an AoE at 38? Burn got you covered until then. A set has poor ST moves? Burn and alternating BU and FE will help tremendously. Claws has everything. Good strong AoE early on so we are not made to ST our way to 28, early damage boost and accuracy as well at a time when someone leveling needs it the most, fast animations, good places for FF. Ok, ok, we all know Claws 😄 And yeah, I miss the old EM too. When BaBs changed it from the Dim Mak touch of death to 'Look at mah hands, mah hands are amazing' (sung to a populaer internet song) was a sad day to all (that said I'm leveling a Fire/EM and it's not being bad actually). Yes it does, Werner ran the numbers (and Bopper confirmed them) before testing in game. It's back in page three or so. If you want to ignore the defense goals you can certainly do a full on proc build. But trying to reach 40% S/L will demand sacrifices from the secondary. Bio is too squishy not to build defense so Fire might be a better option as it reaches 90% resists pretty much on its own (and with a lil help of the ATO). It is something I've been pondering to try on test. I don't actually know how much defense is helping me in the actual game and though it is easily stripped by factions who can debuff defense not all of them do (and some do in small numbers, such as Crey who rely on minions to do it but minions are the first to die). On one hand I posit a full proc Claws build relying on Shockwave to fill the rotation gap should put a dent on my record of 3:07 (incidentally never repeated), but on the other hand I'm satisfied with the times I got. I would need at least a good 30-40 seconds better times from it to consider a change.

You could, but why would you want to hurt yourself like that? Staff has a low damage output and Invuln does not help in that aspect. You'll be gently caressing the enemies to death.

I came from testing an Invuln/Claws. The numbers looked good and in my mind I cast aspersions on Werner thinking that maybe -my- build would do better (hon hon hon). After building the character I went to test it. Invuln blossoms early and so does Claws, so my first test was a +1x8 with bosses Posi 1. Got trounced. Not a good start. Second test was an ITF +4x8. Romans? No problem. Purposefully triggered the ambush at the top of the hill. Zero problem. Yeah, you know, that ambush that tends to wipe parties if everyone is not ready to dump incarnates and play tight and maybe eat skittles? Soloed it, did not use incarnates at all, did not use inspirations. My endurance reached 80% once and then shot back up. My defense never once went into the red. Once, while in the middle of the ocean of sea food, it reached 35%, but then during a lull caused by Shockwave it shot back up to 54%. My HP stayed solid at 100% with dips to 95%-97%. For obvious reasons I never touched Dull Pain. The ugly: tried to solo a pylon and got the same result as Bill. At the four minute mark the pylon was at . Tried again with two spawns of monkeys to try to trigger Gaussian in Invincibility and got a slight improvement at the four minute mark . Unfortunately it's why I can't play a primary without a damage boost of sorts. It's literally half the damage output to play without Bio or Fire Armor. And while Invuln was a dream of playing in auto-pilot without touching clickies (I even took Rebirth expecting the need of a second heal) I don't think it could do the ITF at +4x8. When I did the no deaths +4x8 ITF on the Fire/Claws doing Romulus at twice the damage output was whittling it down. Doing it at half output simply would not happen. Now, does it matter being able to solo the ITF or doing the pylon in less than four minutes? Absolutely not. If someone's intention is to be super sturdy then this sort of thing is right there where they need it. The build that I used: I may have gone a bit overboard in endurance recovery since I was steady at 90% for most of the time with a one time dip to 80%. I did not bother adding more defense for the simply reason of how Invincibility works. I just find that Tankers do not fear one tough enemy, but they fear many smaller enemies. With how Invincibility works this is perfect as we get more defense while there are many enemies, and as they die we no longer need the defense. With one enemy it's at 40% defense, easily workable for more, but in practical game play this is fine IMO.

JUBILATION!

Tried it, didn't like the sloooow animations. You get the same AoE and better ST and a heal just by using Rad Melee. Dark Armor is a bit like Spines and got left behind by the newer sets. Rad Armor has a little cousin of Dark Regen in Radiation Therapy and instead of being an endurance hog it's an endurance faucet. I'm biased by Fire/Claws is my baby and I've yet to find a more well rounded build. Immense damage straight from level 20 (exemped to 15) and sturdy. Though not as sturdy as something like Rad Armor.

50% of 8 does not 15 make. You get 12 and you'll like it!

Trying Fire/SS. Yeah, I can see why people are in love with double Rage. Taking a nice chunk from a boss, popping FE, simply taking half a boss' HP, etc etc. Still clunky though, that Rage crash is both annoying (WHERE IS MY DAMAGE!) and potentially deadly. The Rage Crash is a big flow breaker. It's almost like being CCed. Not being able to play for 10 seconds is just not fun, though it can be the moment to use buffs like Consume and such, but still, not fun. The more recharge the more often it happens. I wish I could set an addon with the timer so I don't jump into a group of enemies or pop buffs when it's about to expire. Leveling to 26/28 was a pain as the set has nothing to its name. No AoE, only KO Blow as a good attack. Being forced to used Punch (itty bitty better than Jab) was horrible as even fully slotted it hit for pathetic damage. Only having paired it with Fire/ made the leveling bearable with Burn pulling the wagon both in ST and AoE. Reaching Yin the combo takes off. Still no AoE, but Rage and FE make Burn shoot up (speaking of I have a new leveling slotting for Burn that allows to get two damage procs in and mimics the playstyle of level 50) which really makes a huge difference in killing speed. Reaching 35 allowed to take Gloom and Punch can finally be thrown to the compost heap. Even just leveling and underslotted (so much hunger for slots) I find I can do the rotation I envisioned for level 50 thanks to KO Blow proccing everything like a swiss watch (including a FF proc). I can Burn, KO Blow, Haymaker, Gloom, Burn and repeat which is pretty much what I intended to do just looking at Mids. Despite the love Footstomp has I'm not impressed. Wide radius, yes, built in KD which does mitigation and carries a FF proc amazingly, yes. But when I pop an AoE I expect damage and even with double Rage it still does less than Spin with just one stack of FU. This is offset by double Rage doing -things- to Burn (not just the initial burst the the burn patch afterwards). Verdict: - Sticking to level 50 play and capable of overlooking the jarring Rage crashes? Fire/SS might be your baby. It's Scrappers levels of damage and I'm going to finish leveling and incarnating it to give it a whirl. - Intending to play with friends who level new alts and be with them as they do their TFs or mission arcs? Fire/Claws. Most well rounded character and damage on wheels exemped down to level 15. This is the build I will be using at 50:

I've been thinking of trying Fire/SS for moar dakka. But the whole build feels like something I should station at level 50 and only play it at that level since its exemplaring is execrable. No Rage until 28 means no damage boost until level 23. The damage boost would at least push Burn to take up the slack until... 33 when the second AoE is available. Then it has a weak ST rotation until... 30 when Gloom can be picked. On the other hand I -can- keep it to play at level 50 (or anything Citadel/Manticore and up) and use the absolutely superb exemplaring of the Fire/Claws for low level play.

Did you get to try it against a pylon, Camel?