Sovera

You keep mentioning purples but purples have no bearing on toughness. All they do is add some recharge and accuracy, and a good damage proc. Barrier is an incarnate, yes. If you're level 50 you should be looking for incarnates. Tier three from any Alpha will increase survival and damage by a measurable chunk by making all enemies -1 as long as you're 45+ in level. Barrier is just a panic button giving a truck load of defenses and resists for 2 minutes, but with the caveat they decay over time. They are at their strongest for the first 10 seconds and then slowly dwindle until the bare minimum is 5% to both. But since it lasts 2 minutes and recharges in 2 minutes it can be considered a permanent 5% for level 45+ content. If you haven't picked an Alpha and taken it to T3 it might be why you've slotted a Kismet, but against +3 you have enough accuracy to reach the cap even without it, and since we don't fight +4 enemies under level 45 we consider +3 as the effective level. That said you DO have a purple set in Death Shroud 😄 Not the best place for it btw, it should be in in Dragon's Tail since the damage proc is wasted in an aura (they only check for damage procs every 10 seconds and the AoE math's give it a low chance, in this case 39%) . You can swap Gauntled Fist from Cobra Strike into Death Shroud. Dragon's Tail is not the best place for Might of the Tanker since you want the ATO proc even during ST situations, which is a moment where we will not be using Dragon's Tail. Since Storm Kick should be your filler power (you should be doing Eagle's Claw, Storm Kick, Cobra Strike, Storm Kick, repeat) but your recharge is pretty low and there's a gap even with Hasten and more so when it is down. Eagle's Claw... Hmm, well, if you like it, but the slow animation even with the damage bonus it has, plus the recharge, etc... You could be better off with just Crane Kick (another FF proc source) or Crippling Axe Kick, and then have Storm Kick, Cobra Strike, Storm Kick, Crane Kick. Repeat. I would say you don't need Gloom (it's been nerfed a bit recently and you should have a gapless ST rotation from MA alone but the low recharge in the build I think it does become necessary to reach a gapless ST rotation) and Darkest Night (we might disagree in this and it's a valid approach). You could take Dark Obliteration and help your AoE which is just Dragon Tail and an aura. As usual my advice on the CC auras is to pick one and accept they are neither very good nor very useful since they only work on minions and minions are the first to die. Keep Oppressive Gloom since A) it costs no endurance and B) it stacks with Cobra Strike (it has a 75% chance to stun at least lieutenants, so it and Oppressive Gloom can stun bosses). You can choose NOT to worry about toxic damage much. There are not many enemies that do toxic damage and to hit you they will first need to get past your defenses. It's just that you've dedicated a lot of slots for what is a niche enemy. But, again, it's a valid approach. A theft of Essence is always a good thing to have in Dark Regeneration to help recoup the massive endurance cost of the power. It makes a large enough difference in groups though less so against one or two enemies. The build is very nicely done btw, everything is in place. Not much wiggle room but that's expected when pushing defenses in a resistance build. I have a Fire Armor/MA I've dubbed the Turtle that's in my signature. We did about the same in terms of builds but I eased up on the slotting to only reach 40% defenses and 77% resistances so that a second ATO proc and Barrier would push both defenses to 45% and resistances to 90%. This allowed me to slot damage procs, up slow resistances, etc, and, of course, being Fire Armor it was a nice ball of death and mayhem (for a Tanker anyway). Fire Armor is weak to Psi but I tested fighting psi enemies and even solo +3 psi AVs and it was cake between the defenses making them miss and the heal. Since I didn't want to mess with the build too much and start removing Gloom or lowering defenses and resistances to account for Barrier and etc I didn't end up tweaking it much. If nothing else you can slip the damage/recharge from Gauntled Fist and use that proc anywhere else as it leaves your resistances at 85-86%. The next stack of Might of the Tanker will give 6.7% so you will be overcapped again anyway. I put that slot and Kismet's in more endurance recovery but two LotGs could be the play as well. Tanker (Dark Armor - Martial Arts) L50.mbd

You could probably tweak the build slightly to have less S/L (notice how you're past 90% and this is with just one stack of the ATO) and could use that to bump your Energy resistances. If wanting to minx it could be built for 40% defenses and then Barrier finishes bumping it to 45%, but building straight to 45% is valid too. I don't feel it is important to go past 45% (so 45% and then Barrier pushing to 50%) because defenses on a resist build are just another layer of mitigation. Anything that debuffs defenses will melt them. But for everything ELSE that does not then blessed relief from the myriad of debuffs in the game! If you'd drop the build I could take a look.

SR has heaps of defense so I might lean on resistances to multiply the effect of the scaling resists. The amount of defense depends on the content you wish to run.

The newbie guide in my signature has some tips if you're not aware of selling merits. It includes the link to the essential Mids, which is the program we use to make builds. Once you have Mids you can import the builds posted in these forums because otherwise they are just a bunch of gibberish.

Dark Armor has Dark Regen that steals HP from mobs and Bio Armor does the same with DNA Siphon (and Radiation Therapy). Of the two I'd say stick to Bio Armor for ease of use as Bio is much easier to use, though it is an offense oriented set which leaves holes in the defense. For attack there is Rad Melee and Dark Melee. Dark Melee is literally life drain where Rad Melee we're draining the radiation that we inject in the enemy. Ignoring the wording of the power we still are draining HP from attacking enemies so it has the spirit of the life drain even if the game mechanics are not the same. If you go Dark Melee then it will solve 90% of Dark Armor's problems which shifts my advice above and leaves it neutral between both picks, but if you pick Rad Melee then my advice shifts further into Bio Armor as Rad Melee is endurance heavy, as is Dark Armor, and having both together will be a small nightmare to keep the blue bar afloat. Rad Melee has, IMO, better AoE with a second damage aura and is easier to use, but the REAL AoE comes at level 30 which is still a long way to cruise with the AoE being solely two damage auras. It needs to proc radiation in order to heal from it so it's unreliabe in a pinch between chances to miss and chances to proc the contaminated mechanic, even though it evens out in the duration of a minute. It is known for its slow animations. Dark Melee has an annoying Build-up mechanic in Soul Drain, 'worse' AoE (relies on a cone and an extremely weak TAoE) but that comes much earlier, a life drain, an endurance drain. It pays for all that utility by not being great damage, It has otherwise faster animations. Both can be coloured at the tailor to fit themes.

Rad/SS is not played for the sturdiness. It's played for the proc bombing of Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero. Elec has nothing of the sort.

Axe demands four powers to have a gapless attack chain. Or skip Cleave which immediately eases up on the recharge demands. But Cleave hits very hard despite the slow animation so it is a hard sell. That said you don't need ALL powers from Axe. T1 and T2 ? One of the two can go. Taunt is niche and good for niche content. If you're doing niche content then take it. If you're just leveling, be it solo or otherwise, or doing regular level 50 content then it's skippable and no one will notice not having it. Lets be honest that most things die in 5 seconds flat in a team and what's left can and will be punchvoked. Anything that can punchvoke back is sturdy enough to take the hits. Certain powers from Bio can be pushed back like Inexhaustible that can be taken in the 30s if not more as DNA Siphon does the heavy lifting (slot a Theft of Essence proc in it).

I see a lot of advice in this thread, good advice at that (fighting while using Hover being top most IMO), but a failure of mentioning the number one way of how Blasters survive: Aim (with a Gaussian proc) + Build-up + last power in your primary. If everything is dead nothing is left alive to hurt you. At +0x4 in particular nothing should be close to hurting you after that combo. For this you do want good recharge and preferably a ranged nuke but if using a PbAoE nuke then slot in a stealth IO so mobs don't notice you until you're on top of them. The nuke + AoE is usually so powerful that everything is dead without the need for Aim + Build-up so you can try saving them for the next group when your nuke is still recharging and then just Aim + BU + regular AoEs. Post your build so we can have a look at and point out improvements. Just having Weave and Tough and Manuvers won't help much without further shoring from IOs.

Multiple sources of *different* -res procs will stack. Can't cheat with five Achilles.

The accuracy seems to be alright at roughly 90%+ against +3 which is where the Alpha leaves us at anyway. The Superior Gauntleted Fist would be better off in Mud Pots IMO. The slotting in Proton Sweep gives almost nothing of interest. Three Eradications and then whatever would push your E/N a bit more (but it's already at 52%) or four Multi-strikes for a bit more resistances. I would definitely fit in Fusion since every 30 seconds or less it can force two or three heals out of Radiation Siphon which is brutal HPS. I personally find Proton Sweep to not add much to the build as the ST rotation is Radiation Siphon, Contaminated Strike, Radioactive Smash, Contaminated Strike, repeat. I suppose it can be looked at as an extra AoE since it has a native 75º angle plus the Tanker's inherent making it roughly 110º, which is decent. But if it went away you could pick Hasten, give it one slot, and then have about four extra slots to play with of which one or two to Crystal Armor to duplicate Stamina's slotting, one for Brimstone for a Gladiator's end/res (just to scoop the two piece bonus) and the last one to do whatever with. Earth's Embrace is just a health buff, not a heal, so it doesn't need the full slotting. If you take the time to collect the accolades (which you should as it boosts your recovery as well as HP) you're over the cap. Rooted, on the other hand, is your perma regen. The slotting of both should be swapped and the slot for endurance recovered. That Obliteration proc in Atom Smasher could be a Scirroco Dervish proc and net another 2.5% E/N resists. With a properly slotted Rooted and with Radiation Siphon you don't need all those Power Transfer procs. That's a few more slots that can be moved around. I picked Focused Accuracy because it was becoming tiring trying to keep the accuracy at 95%. The EPS may seem a bit dire but FA has half the cost it says it does after this last patch and there are a few stamina procs in the mix Mids does not account for. my actual build (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee).mbd

Isn't SR night immune to DDR? I never heard of them going down as far as 45%. That would entail a TON of hits for a long time to overcome the 95%-ish DDR (if I recall correctly).

I understand what you're saying and there is worth in thinking about team wide buffs since the effect is multiplied. But it's still 5% (in practice). 15% I wouldn't even blink about suggesting it or even incorporating it in all my builds, but 5%? Regardless it's the choice of the player, but I just keep people informed not to be tricked by the tooltip. After that if they wish to still take it then they have my blessing.

No, which is why the end result was 5% which was what I was originally speaking of, since no one has no damage enhancements slotted, ne?

Step number one, slot no accuracy whatsoever!

On the tooltip, but hitting something with and without it showed something like a 5% boost.

You only need 59% defenses at the very 1% of the content top, so ease up on the 69% (noice) slotting. Storm Kick has a bad proc chance: If you right click a power to lock it you can hover your mouse over the damage numbers and see the procs breakdown. In this case 29%. But simply swapping the slotting for CAK improves the chance of the proc(s) to go off: Slot a shield Wall unique for 5% to all resists Swap the Ragnorok for full Bombardment as it is full of good bonuses unlike Ragnorok. You are overslotting for accuracy. Place your enemies' relative level at +3 and then check the accuracy of each power. You're currently at something like 150% where you'd want 95% tops. That means the Kismet can go at the very least and all the extra effort at reaching 9% accuracy with the LotGs can be turned into either Shield Walls for 4% E/N or two Reactive Defenses for 1.5% S/L. Swap that Hami from Dragon's Tail for a Force Feedback proc. Replace the Mako's for five Touch of Death for more resists and better bonuses than what Mako gives. Don' forget to +5 the recharges in Hasten as it shaves about 3 seconds off it. Just before clicking on the recharge to slot it press + five times. Assault gives you very little. Perhaps 5%. It IS team wide, but 5% sed 5%. Consider Crane Kick instead of Cobra Strike (actually consider replacing CAK instead as it comes so 'late' in the leveling and it's a minimal damage loss to have a full attack chain before level 20) as Crane Kick is another source of recharge (and soft CC) with a FF proc in it. Crane Kick does need two slots dedicated to nullifying the knockback and then turning it into recharge, but the four slots neatly fit the Superior Might of the Tanker. This is not mandatory of course. Replace the Hami in Gloom for a Cloud Senses damage proc. Consider splitting the Superior Gauntled Fist ATO for a meaty 12% to E/N resistances. You're muling Tough, but actually using Weave. It should be the reverse as Tough gives resistances that you're lacking and Weave is only giving defense you're already overflowing with. With Weave turned off you're still at 61-62% which is still over doing it.

I've tried it on all ATs. Definitely go Stalker as you will be spamming your first three attacks and the ST will never feel great outside of AS. Then pair it with perhaps Stone for all the goodies including recharge. The BU of Stalkers' Kinetic Melee is unlike the BU the other ATs get from KM as it is a regular 90 second, 1.3 activation power that grants 80% damage and 20% ToHit for 10 seconds. All the other ATs get the 2.1 activation, 120 seconds recharge that gives 25% damage and 7.5% ToHit that then stacks for 5 times as you hit for the next 20 seconds. Between the normal BU, Assassin's Strike, and the proc to reset BU, it is, IMO, the best version of KM. It works for all other ATs though, it's just slow. Can't really have good damage when spamming T1 and T2, then the slow animation of Power Siphon, then the ramp up, then the mediocre AoE (though it can slot in an FF).

They should. So instead of the native 30º it ought to be 45º.

Horizon means the future, not the past where patch notes are.

They were already tweaked. Prior to that the Sentinels were what the 'previous'(?) team's idea of them was. But now that they were tweaked by HC this is what they want them to be. And tbh it's fair. They are the City of Heroes version of the Beast Master Hunter from WoW. Which is fine by me (yes, I only play BMs in WoW too). My problem with them is less about their damage and more about the pervasive flee code that the NPCS have because a Blaster will burst mobs down and nothing is alive to run, but the Sentinel will take them to half or even one third HP, which is fine, sure, it would only need a few more hits to defeat so it's a fair exchange for the extra sturdyness, but since they were not defeated then INVARIABLY we have ALL the survivors legging it to the hills. Which would not be a problem (if an accumulative XP loss) if the game did not have kill all missions where we can't leave runners doing their thing.

The only reason I bring it up is because I don't agree with the methodology. We look at the builds being used as the standards for the testing and it's '4-6 damage procs, incarnates to sustain endurance (despite being fought against easy soft non incarnates) and/or survival, and against soft +3 Arachnos'. It's the whole '-res procs are amazeballs' fiasco since the testing is done on a +0 enemy and now it's become a truth that some sets are just bad and some sets are amazing while ignoring the 'better' sets invariably can slot two -res procs. I just don't argue much because the results are there and I'm not a truth denier. It IS true, the testing does not lie. But does 90% of HC build in the same way (I know I don't) that these results must be touted as the way-things-are-and-things-need-to-be-balanced-around-those-results? I don't know. Maybe 90% of HC DOES build like this and it's prevalent. But, my gut, between what I see, the builds I see posted even by people who know how to build, the conversations about pugs etc doesn't show this. But what do I know? I'm no seer. Maybe it is. But as long as we get 'Tankers are OP because Rad/SS can X!' while conveniently slipping out SS allows to skip accuracy and boosts damage in 160% and Rad comes with two proc bombs, and SS' Footstomps reliably help the recharge the proc bombs and four-two-six-procs-per-attack are missing then I will keep on weakly raising a hand and saying 'c'mon, it's not really like that...' I'm not even a rabid Tanker fan. I have easily twice the Brute builds and playtime than I have a Tanker. I like Tankers because I level one at by level 10 I'm usually x6 or x8 and I like the early feel of being a super-hero even if later on everyone can do it where my damage does not keep up with everyone else since I don't do level 50-only-six-damage-procs-and-live-off-incarnates. But I could, I just choose not, so I can't and won't bury my head in the sand and say it's false.

Decimation itself is full of nice bonuses. The proc is complete and utter garbage.

I don't much care to be honest. This is not aimed at you, Erratic. But I just don't much care. We are playing an easy mode game where what is considered the norm is soloing at +4x8. That's how easy the game is. So the arguments, much like my remark about the GW2, is how one class/AT does it 30 seconds faster. But both are still soloing at +4x8. It's not that one can do it and the other not, not like a Blood Death Knight from WoW being able to solo a dungeon while the other 99% of the classes and specs can only watch. As for Tankers the nerfs are on the horizon already. Hopefully they will be light because no one wants to go back to slowly whittling our way through missions.

You could work in Tough and be at the S/L cap, and then move some slotting towards more E/N. No Gaussian in Aim either? Boo! You have no Hover or Combat Jumping so you're just using Sprint for combat mobility? If you like Mystic Flight that's fine though, but consider Hover + Fly and then an aura from the tailor for fancy glyphs, mebbe? You can boost your nuke by triple proccing it which one of the few times I recommend it since Sentinels need the help. It would go from 666 (I see wut you did there!) to 774. You do lose the global accuracy but according to Mids you grossly overcapped, so much so the Kismet can go and still be at 150%+ against +3 enemies. I'm trying to find out where this coming from (found it, you had the useless Decimation proc slotted in and it was messing the numbers). The Sentinel nukes only need damage, endurance and recharge, and then triple procs, because accuracy is handled by Aim. Because of Aim slotting any accuracy is a waste unless doing high level plays of alternating Aim and nuke due to how fast the team is going. Honestly you don't need both Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom considering how bad both are (you can fear and stun minions, not even lieutenants) though I suppose you could keep Oppressive Gloom and stack it with Abyssal Gaze to hold bosses, assuming you even go into melee and stay there. But this can definitely be a theme/aesthetic thing so fair. Splitting the ATOs is really minimal IMO. Sure 20% range, but, heh. There is no point in 6 slotting Dark Blast since you're not building for E/N defenses anyway, but there is also no point in allocating a damage proc since it's a T1 and they are terribad for damage procs. That frees a slot that can go to Aim and the missing Gaussian. I'm leery to mess with it too much since the build seems to be a lot about theme but perhaps you can use something from this: Sentinel Dark Dark Dark 2024 v1.01.mbd The last 5% for S/LN from Barrier.

I think so as well, but the thing with rolling buffs, especially Barrier, is that any paper thin AT becomes a bulky barbarian as the Offender teams showed. I haven't even done hardmodes to be talking.