Sovera

I was looking into an archery/TA blaster to change things a bit. What I came up with is nothing ground breaking, but still, I will post here to see if someone spots improvements. The idea was to reach 45% but I found myself unable to find the last 2.5%, which led me to looking into incarnates, which had me seeing that Barrier Core Epiphany will always give a minimum of 5% defense even at the very end of the effect , which means I used that as a baseline. 40% is ample enough even if examplared since we can chew on a small purple and amply softcap ourselves. We use Barrier, get our minimum 5% and the big defense and res surplus is all delicious cheese while it lasts. S/L is a second layer of defense, it's not something I would rely on all on itself and its use is, maybe, not all that useful since we are ranged softcap. I would have liked to give *less* recharge to RoA but don't see how to do it and keeps the sets. The reason is that it will only be used with Aim and Upshot (what's upshot? Nothing much, you?) meaning recharging a full 6-7 seconds before those is a complete waste, but I can't seem to make it happen so lets forget about it. In any case recharging every 15 seconds we can fire it a second time even without Aim/Upshot just to clean up and it will be up for the next group. ESD Arrow syncs with the cooldowns. Aim, Upshot, Rain of Arrows, ESD Arrow (half hurt remaining mobs are now *not* alpha-ing us), Fistful of Arrows, Explosive, Fistful. Ice Arrow stacks up with ESD if it's needed. I confess I had Punch muled which gave the same defense but with an extra 6.5% recharge, but a mule is a mule, and Ice Arrow can be stacked with ESD Arrow. We lose the 6.5% recharge, but we got more than enough. Overall I don't feel I have sacrificed much. Everything has good stats, Hasten is perma even without Upshot, we can stack holds, we have a lot of defense. We can also consider ignoring Barrier and picking Clarion to be immune to all CC (mostly) and just munch on the occasional purple to softcap ourselves if we find we have aggro (so, all the time? Blasters, not having aggro, what?). I have done this with other characters but the reason I am not doing so now is because Barrier also gives a *lot* of resistances, and we're aggro machines who will be thankful for it, at least until the two minutes are almost done and we're suddenly going ow ow ow because we were relying on those resistances and they have shrunk. Intuition Partial Radial Revamp seems like a match made in heaven for the build. Extra hold duration (our main/only CC), more range, more 33% damage. Less damage than the 45% of Musculature though, but we don't really use immobilizes (at least Electrified Net is just a mule for me since I'm forced to take it), we don't have defense debuffs, we don't do ToHitdebuffs, so it's all about the extra 8% damage with no other benefits. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. On the other hand the gain from the extra damage seems really minimal since our damage is already way into ED territory (Mids shows RoA going from 1141 without Intuition to 1170 with Intuition), which means perhaps a different incarnate will be more useful. The build: Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Magic Blaster Primary Power Set: Archery Secondary Power Set: Tactical Arrow Power Pool: Flight Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leadership Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Aimed Shot -- Apc-Dam%(A), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Apc-Acc/Rchg(3), Apc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Apc-Dmg/Rchg(5), Dcm-Build%(7) Level 1: Electrified Net Arrow -- GrvAnc-Immob(A), GrvAnc-Immob/Rchg(7), GrvAnc-Acc/Immob/Rchg(9), GrvAnc-Hold%(9), GrvAnc-Immob/EndRdx(11) Level 2: Fistful of Arrows -- SprDfnBrr-Rchg/+Status Protect(A), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), SprDfnBrr-Dmg/Rchg(15), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(17), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg(19) Level 4: Hover -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 6: Blazing Arrow -- SprWntBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg(A), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(21), SprWntBit-Dmg/Rchg(21), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), SprWntBit-Acc/Dmg(23) Level 8: Fly -- Flight-I(A) Level 10: Upshot -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25) Level 12: Explosive Arrow -- Rgn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), Rgn-Acc/Rchg(25), Rgn-Dmg/Rchg(27), Rgn-Knock%(27), Rgn-Dmg/EndRdx(29), SuddAcc--KB/+KD(29) Level 14: Afterburner -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 16: Aim -- GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg(A), GssSynFr--Rchg/EndRdx(31), GssSynFr--Build%(31), GssSynFr--ToHit(31), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(33), GssSynFr--ToHit/EndRdx(33) Level 18: Ranged Shot -- StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), GldJvl-Acc/End/Rech(33), StnoftheM-Dmg/ActRdx/Rchg(34), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx(34), StnoftheM-Acc/Dmg(34), StnoftheM-Acc/ActRdx/Rng(36) Level 20: Eagle Eye -- NmnCnv-Heal/Rchg(A), NmnCnv-Heal(36), NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx(36), EffAdp-EndMod(37), EffAdp-EndMod/Rchg(37), EffAdp-EndMod/Acc(37) Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(39) Level 24: Super Speed -- Clr-Stlth(A) Level 26: Ice Arrow -- Lck-Acc/Hold(A), Lck-Acc/Rchg(39), Lck-Rchg/Hold(39), Lck-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(40), Lck-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(40), Lck-%Hold(40) Level 28: Agility -- Run-I(A) Level 30: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 32: Rain of Arrows -- SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg(A), SprBlsWrt-Dmg/Rchg(42), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(42), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), SprBlsWrt-Rchg/Dmg%(43) Level 35: ESD Arrow -- Lck-Acc/Hold(A), Lck-Acc/Rchg(43), Lck-Rchg/Hold(46), Lck-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(46), Lck-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(46), Lck-%Hold(48) Level 38: Gymnastics -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 41: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), GldArm-3defTpProc(45), UnbGrd-Max HP%(45) Level 44: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(45) Level 47: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(48), LucoftheG-Def(48), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(50) Level 49: Scorpion Shield -- Rct-Def(A), Rct-Def/EndRdx(50), Rct-Def/Rchg(50) Level 1: Brawl -- KntCmb-Acc/Dmg(A), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx(11), KntCmb-Dmg/Rchg(13), KntCmb-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13) Level 1: Defiance Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(19) Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A) Level 50: Barrier Core Epiphany Level 50: Intuition Partial Radial Revamp ------------

/macro WP "powexec_location target Whirlpool" That's #5 in my Water/* toons' attack bar. I put the Whirlpool power in the slot in the bar above it so I can see the countdown timer. /macro RoA "powexec_location target Rain of Arrows" That's for my Archery toons. Macros suck due to not being able to see the countdown. I suggest binding the key you use to activate Whirlpool instead. In my case I use control +3 to activate Rain of Fire, so I do /bind lctrl+3 "$$powexec_location target Rain of fire". Functionally nothing changed, you're going to press the button you always did, but now it will do the skill on your target and you will have the cooldown showing which would not happen with a macro. Except if you decide to change the location of your Whirlpool on your tray and then you will have to rebind it, but in my case things stay where I place them so it's not a problem.

Why not Sudden Acceration KB to KD?

The fire/bio build I posted on these forums tackled 4/8 farm maps face on, not floating out of ranged. It did require a single small purple to be soft capped though, which is much easier to maintain solo than in a group where insps get split off to the team. That said it only 'tanked', it had no special tools for agro, but aggro for the most part is a non thing. If you jump into the pack first and unleash all your AoEs the surviving mobs will be pretty focused on you. Nothing survives more than a few seconds anyway. Few teams won't have a dom or a controller in them and they will sponge off the alpha. Prolonged fights belong only in the realms of AVs and that's the only time some aggro tool will be warranted. Almost surely you cannot build a team that does not have a tanker or a brute unless really nitpicking who joins. Any brute has ST aggro in their attacks so they will always steal it off anything that isn't actively trying to aggro, like using Provoke or another brute, or a tanker.

I posted a plant/psi dom build with 33% to all defenses, so one small purple, vendor bought, is enough to be defense softcapped.

Good points overall, though a bit vague in actual advice.

Hmm, good advice and just what I was after. So I am forced to take pets, which I am not too hot on with their recharge, and one AoE attack which a super long recharge, also not something I am hot on. I suppose Barrier would further tank me up negating the need to spam eat purples. The stacking damage buff seems smarter too, because if we are at the damage cap because a kin is there it means we are bulldozing content anyway.

It's most definitely cheaper :D From what I am seeing as I play I can usually buy one enhance a day which means it might still be two or three weeks to get it all, but I don't need it day one of reaching level 50. I feel you have underslotted yourself a fair bit though. The Positrons I usually replace damage/endurance for the proc. Damage is still overcapped and we get a bit more boom from the proc. Drain psyche needs... accuracy. Yep. I had it like yours at first and realized I was missing when I used it, which was baaaaaad as I relied on it for my endurance. That's why I frankenslotted it as I did. Find a slot for the -res proc of Achiles Heel in Sleet, IMO. You're missing out on Ice Storm too. To be honest I hardly ever use Psychic Shockwave myself. I have a lot to spam and don't feel the need to be in melee range to do so, so it just serves as a mule set. In your case I *might* advocate, to the cries of horror from more veteran doms, to replace it for Ice Storm. You have no travel power. Which you know, I'm sure. Tactics serves little purpose being underslotted and not muling something like Vengeance does. You could take it out and replace for Super Speed or Super jump. Now, the Ascendency of the Dominator proc is apparently a good power-up averaging 40% damage to all powers with brief 60% spikes as long as we keep on spamming it. Carrion Crawlers is *possibly* a good place for it since its a fire and forget pet, though it's also a bit lazy. I am loathe to let go of the +recharge and -res proc myself. You have S/L overcapped. What I mean is, it's too much for PvE (too much being a relative term, we have no resistance against defense debuffs, so if we have a buffer of defense even if we are it lowered we are still at the softcap), and it's too little for incarnate stuff. Which means you will eat a small purple to cap yourself, which means you will be overcapped for incarnate stuff (again, relative term). You can remove the Kinetic Combat slots from Boxing and drop to 46%, still softcap defense for normal PvE, and with the 12.5% of a small purple you reach 58.7%... being that the softcap for incarnate missions is 59% (someone correct me if I misremember). Now with the floating slots your build currently has plus the ones you've freed from Kinetic Combat you can consolidate your other powers (psi lance, for example, has rrrreally low accuracy). You can re-check the original post above since I'm going to update it now with some refinements regarding frankenslotting powers. You can remove all the slots from another Kinetic Combat mule and toss four into Tough with Unbreakable Guard and one in your psychic shockwave to complete the set. You keep your S/L softcap (45.9%), beef up Tough *and* slot a 7.5% HP unique, while also beefing up Psychic shockwave a little more at the cost of a mule set, unless you actually use the power. The way I'm seeing as I play Strangler, Subdue and Mental Blast recharge before the animations have finished, which makes Strangler not being slotted for damage a bad thing. I'm going to wait until the patch lands and I have Psi Lance to see how the ST chain works out, but I do spend precious little time STing anything. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1433;649;1298;HEX;| |78DA6593594F13511886CF74A696A5A5B450F60AAD4091A5827A6F0C2841298EF20| |3C8A44CDA49EA4CD31913BDF4B7A070E78D5171FB071AD7A8572E3FC025022E7119| |3FCEFB956266D2F699F37EEF99F9969EC2E5B9E88DF9AB2784129FAD18AEBB32E75| |CB46CC3736AE18251B28AAA1022A6570CDB1B2A18AE67D6DC0829837BAE9559C7F6| |6A4E252F3DF555A6113FE9BAC6A58A97D75DCBB1AD627D9D58B0CB66CDB4BD7CFDA| |64577E831CB55D35C8DC9DBD356A9EC5976292A578BA651A545BCBE58A554CA56B5| |EF54D52AE6178AE60AD2BBD228A087121DA1EFFC6E0DF2F255F13224445A13A157C| |CD7A0F6068CECF7AE117214BB0E1E58676E804DE455E0158A4F97682645E5DDAA4E| |C892EB3CD87281B90C66A98F61B9DD57C21384194D449967E821113C271CF9AA20B| |605B66D33BF81ED3BCCEFA0421B9B39AB6699551729AD7893684DC1A5921683168E| |752BB2F6E45155C692DB60E70EF307D8F5136C25C4F1062D7E1319776D823DB798B| |7C1BE3BE022ED497067123C833EEEFD00CF62806710256F87ECAC1FEE388B7C0F2E| |310BCC73E090CE94956A54550A5585525CE9503B98E90413E4E9664F77EAFF5886B| |D05CAA097BBD3BB89AA0FDD65DE63DE07871F301F8231423F57DABF86EA87AF81A3| |EBCC0D3049B9A47956E90CB425DA3FC8FB07DFA223A3EFC0DC7BE607B08DBC599E4| |4F609F6E79E82879F319F335F807115A762B7B6915F21A98D0BE43EFE87D77FC149| |1F3CF21BECA1118E716E633CF1C975FC7B261FC333F508EC27EF04F77982FB3CC5F| |D9DE27E7750FD79AE3F2F27D849CA342BD3BC6B40DB3B93F4D975651B8A3F1E884E| |07949980722CA01C0F288B0D4581D2247F752D70EEDBF7CEBDFFB185A2CAFEE8E78| |0F229A07C0928FF0061DF0E6B| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

What are good choices for a plant/psi? Drain Psyche means I don't have endurance needs, hasten is already close to perma, my defenses need only a small purple to soft cap outside incarnate stuff. I'm not from the time of incarnates so I don't have much of a clue on what to pick suitable for all contents, not just farming.

From what I was given to understand Bodyguard caps your resists, it's not resists + bodyguard to achieve 150% resists. On the other hand you'd be tough even outside of BG in this setup.

If you don't mind the constant 'whum whum whum' of not being able to cast it when you move, yes, it's a way to do it too.

Go Bob!!

Edit: some changes were in order. So, as a newbie to the whole attuned and catalyzed gear I only now finally 'got' that attuned means the set *bonus* will keep on working even if exemplared, while catalyzed means that we can level up the IOs up to five times and their *stats* get better. An ACC/DMG IO +5 is as good as a regular ACC/DMG HAMI, for example. Drain Psyche being frankenslotted and having no set bonus to worry about marries itself very well with catalyzed IOs. The new stats it boasts with +5 are a thing of beauty (-950% regen quasi or perma on AVs, and 190% endurance recovery with just one target at the tune of 6.22% per second , keeping in mind that Stamina's endurance recovery would be 50% if it was triple slotted, with a total of 408% regen, which with accolades makes 22HP per second, all with just one target. With ten targets we regen 108 HP per second) but hardly necessary, it anything they will be the last thing I will upgrade. I previously had the Ascendency of the Dominator on the ST hold, but after some reading the proc is actually rather nice as long as we spam the power. It stacks and ignores PPM, and can be as high as 60% damage to all powers though a steady 40% is more common. I realized that I don't spam Strangler during regular play (where I am rather spamming AoEs). I am hardly ever doing single target damage and if I am then I am surrounded by a team, where if I am soloing or in regular play what I am usually doing is throwing AoEs, as I mentioned. With this Roots goes from 74 damage (Pines numbers, used as a metric in this case) to 37 damage, but this is made up by the proc IMO since its damage for *all* attacks. This opened a gap in the defenses so I had to slot Winter's Bite to cover for it. Winter's Bite is expensive, but it's offset by no longer slotting the Coersive Persuasion purples in Seeds of Confusion for Malaise's Illusions. It's not all bad, since Strangler can/should be part of the ST chain and now it has damage slotted in. Strangler has a glacial animation though, so we are not going to win prizes on our ST damage based on our three ST attacks only, on the other hand Rain of Fire will be ticking, Carrion Crawlers will be ticking, Fly Trap will be munching, Fireball can replace Stranglers when it's up, so we do not depend solely on those three attacks to perform. And now back to the show! After a bit of testing, who knew that something that can regenerate to full in 12 seconds would be hard to kill? *surprisedpikachumeme.jpg* So, there is nothing ground breaking in this build but it works, and so well I ran out of mobs to test in the farm map which made me stop and consider it done (for now). If anything I would just try to pare down the cost of it since I went ham grabbing all the things without a care to the cost involved. I am also not 100% satisfied with the ST chain (Fireball, Psi Lance, Subdue. Psi Lance in particular is waiting for the patch to become instant and until then will be of low use with the near five second activation since no high ToHit is slotted. Until that happens possibly take Mental Blast and then respec) though I feel there are usually other things to click that should keep us busy. But, it is something to work on as I gain more experience with the build. This is supposed to be a good-for-all-content which is why I have some odd slotting here and there. There is no actual need to slot endurance modification in Drain Psyche if we are just farming since we tend to be saturated anyway, but, if I'm in a party and we are killing a single AV, then I would like to make my endurance something I am not even aware that it exists. The damage is still mostly confused mobs hitting each other, but Roots is slotted for damage, Fireball was picked for the quick recharge so we are not twiddling our thumbs and Rain of Fire marries itself *very* well with Roots being spammed, which is an AoE filler anyway (the CC lasts for 24 seconds (not counting domination) but the actual damage ticks only happen for the initial five ish seconds). Part of the 'good for everything' tag is wanting to be extra durable, hence the 33% defense. Munch on a small purple and be softcapped (best munch on two while doing incarnate business) which goes very very well with our regen (IF we have hit 10 mobs with Drain Psyche we reach the regen cap and go from zero to full in twelve seconds at the beat of 98 HP per second) albeit with just one enemy we only regenerate 20 HP per second (one minute from zero to full). This is without +HP accolades and the character certainly deserves picking those up. The character is *great* for soloing and teams. Seeds of Confusion hurry things up and keeps everyone safe both in solo and in teams, there is a lot of AoE, again good for solo and AoE, and if we are in a team and Drain Psyche slap an AV it gets a perma/near perma -890% regen on it which will be *definitely* appreciated. Perma/near perma Drain Psyche and Hasten leaves it to Carrion Crawlers to proc Force Feedback and finish shaving the last seconds. They are lazy pseudo-pets though, but they do proc Force Feedback (tested). I have not picked Incarnates since I have not played with that content. We do not need endurance, do not need defense (sort of, for incarnate business more is not bad), do not need mez defense since we have Domination, do not need recharge. So I guess we just want moar damage, MOAR!! Or not. More veteran dominators who wish to chime in please do so. Things that help the build: - How to have both Hasten and Domination fire off automatically: - Auto target Rain of Fire/Carrion Crawlers: /bind <key> "$$powexec_location target Rain of fire$$" - Auto combine insps into purples (peruse the reddit link for more info): w "+forward$$pow_exec_auto hasten$$inspcombine catch_a_breath luck$$inspcombine focused_rage good_luck$$inspcombine keen_insight good_luck$$inspcombine dramatic_improvement good_luck$$inspcombine rugged good_luck$$bind_load_file_silent c:\games\CoH\binds\Forward2.txt" and w "+forward$$pow_exec_auto domination$$inspcombine take_a_breather good_luck$$inspcombine insight luck$$inspcombine enrage luck$$inspcombine respite luck$$inspcombine sturdy luck$$inspcombine break_free luck$$inspcombine awaken luck$$bind_load_file_silent c:\games\CoH\binds\Forward.txt" (The combining bind can be tweaked to leave greens alone, or reds, just remove the inspirations from it you'd like to keep. OR set the bind to combine when pressed instead of having it be done automatically) - Bind to eat a green, any green, no matter where it is in the tray: /bind <key> "inspexecname resurgence$$inspexecname dramatic_improvement$$inspexecname respite" - Bind to eat a purple, any purple, no matter where it is in the tray also: /bind <key> "inspexecname phenomenal_luck$$inspexecname good_luck$$inspexecname luck" The build: | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1507;687;1374;HEX;| |78DA6594D94F135114C6EF74A6D66EB4A50B204B6D592C205D00F5C5C418508C015| |243A2C6A875522630496D9B4E4DF4D1075F8D4FFAA0B8BC18F7271770897F82DBBF| |60E2938A06A33EE1E93D1FB4B19336BF3BDFB9E79EEF9EB93333E7273D4FA62EEE1| |38A6FA2A05B566EB274D62CEAD552C53197378D62DE50055D0EFA473743B98952B1| |5A291592D9825EAC6EDCC5EAF1FD96A59F2B549359CB2C15CDFCC6BD70654B94355| |7368C79B71C1E2C980B8B552F8F6B43B3B8E09377D3863E6F54AC45B3DC79A06CE6| |295A317233BA55352A17EA26DBC9D720FDA7A4CBDAB56E17F73421329AB0DD071F3| |0B587E023E696C74C473D977E748943A428584D595679F60A73EB4BF015D3F51A7C| |C38C53AB5499BCAEA8C3848C53784027C5EC1CB3D9C38A9CEF09315BFCCCC32A77B| |B56DB71D2C6B1534CFF6930C76C3D03EA4C37253AB11367AF909A429A1B9A5BEE2E| |408A172EBC7011828B105C8888103E64F93027487901EC2C709D2A06351159627AC| |8755051A4EBE09C22771B9965B6F7A8CCCB36C96D57C12BCC10AD1B46AD306AA9A4| |B5712D7BDB2877B66B0DAC05BA35D1F38BEF7BFE82BF9933840E74B063943BB3FD1| |2B897644D15B1CFEC69E02EAF95F9C2B95E4227E76A9D239C134B8269666F0ACC30| |35F2DA8D7E76C37F2FFAD9877ECED2BA51AC1BFD092F3F987D6BE02A73407AA4FE0| |784882327BE1BB131E68E717017B887E9A33AFDD87BFF0D3EDF834BE04DF01673E8| |367887D942B909D44BBCE3D333F49EB9F303F811FCC46C218FC3A837FC94D719790| |63E075F3053CBE00AD34FB949EE9B9AC4B34DE19966FE8078A6AD34378D33927ECB| |67AE4BFBFFBD8DD795F5A1A668BA49C93429634DCA789332DDA464B5CDEF8550A4E| |2F4D357004EBEBA28AA208AB7F27BA37694CFC8B7462DC1F3561BB56BFC8C8FB864| |65B9F6B186F1F186F18986F13FF180F77A| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Friggin' impressive, Solar!

After playing around with a sentinel I was testing I came to see that healing is a must. The downfall of the Plant/MA was having nothing to counter the hits that did come through. I'll try it with /psi since Drain Psyche ought to (easily) counter what damage goes through the defenses.

Aye aye, I think I got the build as far as I could make it and can only thank the devs for letting us have Justin to test. Basically, psi epic adds a fast recharge AoE who only sins by.... doing double digits in damage. I mean, ok, it recharges really fast and it has a hefty -recharge tacked on, plus stun, but double digits? Hmm. It also has Link Minds which adds a bit more defense to act as a buffer for defense debuffs. Fire epic has fire cages to keep things in, but I'm out of slots to give it meaningful stats. Since I only use it after Inferno I coast on Aim for Fire Cages to hit and it sort of works, but too many mobs run free if I use it afterwards. Would need to shuffle things around. Fire Sword Circle does double damage of Psychic Shockwave but has none of the perks. It recharges in about 11 seconds which is decent. I'll update the OP with my findings and then let this particular build go to check something else.

Welp, that's an easy fix then. With double repel + KB this is a terrible soft CC. I just want more AoE, I want to be able to have an AoE chain and not stop and do ST attacks to filler. The upside is that the build plays a lot like a scrapper. No buffs to keep track of (other than our purple) and no worries about CC. Just jump into a pack, unleash hell, ignore the leftovers and go pick another pack once Inferno + Aim is back up while the leftovers run after us. The difference is that we don't need to chase stragglers or worry about positioning.

Thanks to Justin I went to test this with the 32.5% build. Went all the way to +4/8 on the Comic Con S/L farm (picked at random, we're not S/L focused) without a problem. I would go to a patrol, pop Aim, pop Inferno, Fireball, RoF, then filler and Fireball once back up. When Aim would be almost up i would ignore the remains and look for another patrol and repeat. Eventually the leftovers would be chasing me and i didn't have to mop them up. Parasitic Leech was unnecessary. I was using Ablative Armor (very powerful) and occasionally Rebuild DNA (sort of meh, an insp would have done the same, almost). Definitely wants to use the vendor and trim what insps drop and a macro to combine them. Things I've noticed with the build: Survives easily even with offensive adaptation. Stamina was constantly at 90% which makes me think I can shuffle slots or even ditch powers. Blazing Bolt does KB but we cannot slot a KB>KD IO which makes the power much less useful. Boerderline do not want if I am to be honest. Rain of Fire scattering mobs is both a feature and a flaw since the scattering lets us regen. The few seconds waiting for Fireball to return are a bummer when we're surrounded by mobs and we're down to pewpewing with ST attacks. Conclusion: going to rework the build. Drop Parasitic and Athletic and see about working in Fire Cages and Fire Sword Circle for less AoE downtime.

I was testing a concept that did not pan out very well. Thank god for Justin so I did not finish leveling and slotting it in the live servers just to be disappointed. It was a plant/MA based on the idea of using Envenom Blades to add a lot of extra ticks of damage, then pick Roots, Creepers, Caltrops, Sleet and Ice Storm under the idea that each tick of damage (76 ticks in both Sleet and Ice Storm) would have a tick of damage added. But no. Roots only gets the toxic damage on application, Caltrops works fine, Creepers only on application, and Sleet and Ice Storm only tick once a second for a triffle. Envenom blades does a % of the attack's damage, so my snipe was hitting for 250 damage and the toxic tick was 40 damage. On Sleet and Glacial Storm it was something like 0.22 toxic once a second, and all the other ticks during that second ignored. I picked a random map that had patroling packs which was my undoing too. I would seed a pack, then start dropping all those AoEs, then a second pack would come before Seeds was up again and the rush of damage would kill me quickly even at 45% S/L.

I went to Justin to test, and woosh, even at 45% S/L I went down in seconds in a 0/8 S/L farm. As if I was naked. Those five percent chance hitting seems to add up pretty fast and I had no heals other than insps. I guess it's back to /Psi, though at the rate I went down I'm not sure the regen would have helped. I'll make a new test character tomorrow.

I tried without success to edit Refractor Beam on Pines, but nothing I could do made it accept the changes. Only the short description tooltip (dmg, lethal, moderate, etc) could be altered but the description of refractor Beam stayed that of the snipe.

It feels situational which was why I was asking. Building for 33% to all is harder but works for everything. But how situational? I left back in I14 so I don't know or even remember how common pure damage attacks are in the game. It's not so good to be tanking aimed at all content and suddenly faceplanting out of the blue.

I'm toying with two builds. One has (easily) softcapped S/L defenses and more freedom of powers and slots. The has melee, ranged and AoE at 32.5% so it can all be softcapped with a small purple, but it's a verrrrry tight build in terms of slotting. For those who work out with builds with only softcapped S/L how do you find it in terms of defense and faceplanting?

Are the procs worth it though? Pines show them as 70 damage. With PPM how much is that? Personally I went with -res and +recharge, though in my (limited) testing the +recharge is pretty slow in happening since Creepers tend to be a lazy pet sometimes taking ten or twenty seconds to actually spawn a tentacle once we have moved to the next pack.

Someone answered! \o/ Yeah, I didn't list the Probe because I don't want to be in melee range more than I need to. In fact, I'm starting to think I ought to ditch Psychic Shockwave despite its numerous perks just because I'm not intending to be in melee for longer than it takes to use Drain Psyche.