Sovera

Holy necro thread. Leveling is quick so easy enough to level something else. Fire, Storm and Elec are the champions. Storm not due to its damage but the defensiveness angle.

Incarnates are a bit complicated but not unduly so. I would almost say more about being counter-intuitive than complicated. The moment you reach 50 you automatically start building veteran XP to gain veteran levels. Once you start gaining veteran levels you get incarnate crafting materials. Now this is where the counter-intuitiveness starts creeping in: There are TWO types of 'recipes' which you can find here: But you go to Create, and, lets say, start with Alpha. Alpha is the most important anyway. Alpha has the 'fix' to whatever your build has. Guzzling endurance? Go Cardiac. Slow recharge? Go Spiritual. More damage? Go Musculature. Playing a Controller and doing lots of CC? Go Intuition. As a rule the two big ones are Musculature and Cardiac but there are niche uses for others such as Agility for a little bit more of recharge, defense, endurance, etc. Musculature is not super useful for a Brute due to Fury diluting its damage boosting but you don't really need need anything since your endurance is taken care of, your recharge is decent, etc. All incarnates will be the same with a left and a right side, and the left or the right side will give slightly different results under the same theme. Musculature's right side is And the left side is: They are about the same. Now these bonuses run afoul of Enhancement Diversification so the '45%' is more like, 15% in actual practice, but it's still 15%. Because of this the damage difference between the '45%' version and the 33% version is minor, something like 3-4% (if I recall correctly) which usually has me picking the 33% version as more rounded version. I may not care much about the extra run speed, or defense debuffs, or immobilization duration, but that endurance modification buff is another 0.20-ish per second. So, explanation out of the way, how does this work? First one, right at the bottom: Both recipes are the same thing, but they use different incarnate materials. The top one, with the Essence of Incarnates, is the 'shards' and actually rarer on Homecoming so you can safely ignore it (this is basic advice for newbies but once you grasp more of the game you can save some materials by using these recipes, but that's for later). The second recipe with the Biomorphic Goo is called the 'threads' recipes and is the type you will always be wanting because it is the one that Homecoming is geared towards. Pretty much everything is geared towards the threads between getting them from drops once we're 50, getting them from veteran level-ups, getting them as rewards from Tinpex or doing Dark Astoria rewards, etc. So, looking at it, you need Now lets say you're level 50, got a few veteran levels, so you have some basic materials. You go to Convert: Incarnate thread. And then you check what you need. A Biomorphic Goo? Right there under Common: Once you bought all you need return to Create and craft it. Then go to Equip and equip it. Now, part of the clunkyness is that to craft the second tier we need to craft the first tier, AGAIN. So to create we need to craft the first one first since it is part of the needed crafting materials. Eventually to craft the very last one you need to craft them all! Which means crafting the first to craft the second to craft the third, then craft the first to craft the second to craft the other third, and finally with both those thirds you can craft the fourth! *pantpantpant* Now you don't need (or have to, or are even expected to) only use threads to craft what you need. Every few levels (it's deterministic and not RNG) you get better crafting materials, and doing certain content gives Empyrian Merits. These are the ones you should be using to buy everything rare and very rare: It seems complicated on the surface but it's simpler once getting past the initial phase. Now, tips: - Try and do a Tinpex every day once at 50. Either keep an eye on LFG or form one once comfortable with it. Tinpex is actually two extremely short TFs that take about 15 minutes each and give a choice of rewards at the end. Always pick the Incarnate Materials reward. It's RNG, but you can luck out and get a Very Rare and save a ton of materials, but even just a common saves 20 threads. Also, each of those TFs gives an enormous 40 merits so you come out of it half an hour in total with 80 merits and two incarnate rewards to help building your materials, AND enough merits to sell and buy one purple IO a day. - Level ups at 50 also give incarnate materials and it will be common to see people running the Imperious TF (colloquially called ITF) because that TF is a well of XP with a metric ton of enemies. - As a fresh level 50 try to do a Tinpex before crafting anything. Hey, maybe you'll get the materials needed for the T1 without having to spend a lot of threads. - Whatever flavour of Alpha you pick make it your first priority to reach one of the third options (colloquially just called T3 since third row). Reaching your T3 in any of the alphas gives a +1 level shift. Now all enemies are -1, so if fighting +4... they are now +3. This is a HUGE power boost both in defense and offense so it has first priority. This level shift is only for level 45+ so if exemplaring lower than 45 it goes away. Keep in mind Incarnates can and should be tailored for your build and playstyle. But this what I usually pick as a bog standard as incarnates go: - Musculature for my Alpha and pick the 33% version to have a damage boost and faster replenishing blue bar. - Barrier (120 seconds version) as my Destiny since it is a massive panic button if I am about to die. It gives a HUGE amount of defenses and resistances for the first 10 seconds, and then that amount slowly decays over a period of 120 seconds. At bare minimum it will always give a permanent 5% resistances and defenses. I say permanent because the recharge is ALSO 120 seconds. - Degenerative 75% damage DoT as my Interface. Degenerative lowers the maximum HP of enemies. This has little effect on normal enemies but once fighting Giant Monsters or Arch Villains their regeneration is tied to their HP so less HP means less regenerated per second. It makes a big difference in soloing them. The choice of 75% to do damage is trying to milk it so it at least does SOMETHING to normal enemies but it's not much. - For Hybrid I usually pick Assault and chance for increased damage since I'm always all out on damage (once again, picking the right one for you and your build matters). This one lasts two minutes and then has a two minutes cooldown so it's fire and forget and don't fuss about it. - For Lore I usually pick either Banished Pantheon or Longbow. Lore summons one/two mobs to help you. But, 7 minutes cooldown (not a typo) and the mobs are squishy so they get evaporated quick. BUT, they help a LOT in killing archvillains.... if they don't get vaporized. There are tricks about keeping control of the AV and trying to not have it face the summons so they don't get hit. Honestly it's the least important incarnate for me. - Ion from Judgement with the chance to do additional damage. It's a nuke. Blaster envy? You're a Blaster now. Once every two minutes at least. Again it's not the most important incarnate for me and one of the last to pick.

A Fortunata?

Hmm... Now I'm interested in this as my next project. Four PbAoEs under 10 seconds? Mmmmmmh.... Your S/L resistances are grossly overcapped. Try to reach closer to 84%, tops, the way you have negative/energy, because your ATO in Incinerate will add another 6.7%). Lower another 5% if intending to use Barrier. That means only 5 of the ATOs in incinerate and then something else. Or, lean into it and toggle Tough off and get to 84% without it. S'up to you. The Kismet is superfluous and can be removed (set your Enemy Relative Level to +3 and then check the accuracy of each attack). You have slightly too much recharge debuff and can recover the slots from Meltdown. Perhaps put them into Weave since you're building for S/L defense. Everything seems somewhat in place though you're building for S/L defenses and don't have a 5th Blistering in Fire Sword? I'll post how I would build it later but it's lunch hour now.

You want recharge for RT and GZ (and BU). Remember to always keep using Particle Shielding even when not needing the heal because with enough recharge the shield will be perma anyway, and Particle Shielding has a hefty 50% recovery. To put it in perspective unslotted Stamina has 25%. Performance Shifters will be working, put it back in 😛 You should be sweating endurance and not be worried about it. Gamma boost adds almost 0.7, Particle Shield adds another 0.8 or something. It's true the slots usually going into Health and Stamina for endurance were removed but thhat's because Rad Armor has no problems with endurance. Things you can do to help: - Pick the accolades (they are in my newbie signature) for another 0.40-ish (currently at 4.18, and with accolades it goes to 4.59. Bonus: HP goes from 1752 to 2051). - Turn off Focused Accuracy and only use when needed versus accuracy debuffing enemies (need to shuffle slotting to have enough accuracy). - Particle Shielding all day. Not when down to one third of a bar or when in need of a heal. Just use it all the time. The duration of the recovery effect is 60 seconds and it recharges in 40. Brute (Energy Melee - Radiation Armor)-Sovera-Speed.mbd

...as a Tanker those caps you speak of are reached by level 20 while leveling. Okay, lets say 22 to use level 25 IOs though as someone who has leveled characters who were at 40% by level 13 I can say 40% is enough even doing +0x6 by then. While leveling we have amplifiers so it would be 45% by level 22. Most expensive things would be around 12-13 million from the two +3% uniques. The Gaussians are 1-2 million each but lets say 2 million to round up, so 12 million. Strictly speaking not needed since they just give 2.5% and thus can be acquired later. The LotG can be replaced by a normal level 25 defense IO. Total = 24-ish million. I spend as much when making a new character and going through the START vendor to get all the teleports and powers I usually take. 45% is pedantic though, in the low levels 40% is enough to already be (near) immortal so even the two defense uniques can be done without though it makes more sense to go without the Gaussians since it takes a lot of early slots which can be used to slot attacks. So 42% by 22. If it's anything like Stone Armor it's more level 40% by level 12 ignoring the Gaussians which is functionally immortal since low level mobs attack slowly with big gaps and don't hit hard. By the time the amplifiers run out there are enough slots and bonuses to recoup those lost 5%.

Not a problem. The weakest link was Superior Conditioning that is, strictly speaking, not necessary in a build that has Energy Drain that recharges every 20 seconds and gives half a bar with only one enemy in range. Scrounged the slots from SuperJump so a bit of S/L resistance was lost, and then the extra slots from Energy Cloak that were there just for the E/N bonus and placed everything in Concentrated Strike with a Mako set to get back the E/N bonus. Did lose 5% recharge but it's not the end of the world. Jynami Shui - Brute (Kinetic Melee - Energy Aura)(1).mbd

Yeah, those clockworks are plenty mean. The trick is killing them fast, and since they are ranged it's not a bad idea to do corner pulls is you're solo. And keeping at least one small purple going all the time. With my Fire Armor Tanker they could hurt enough to eventually kill me if I was playing fat and happy. But corner pulls, Build-up, and Fire Armor, makes kill fast a thing.

Easy trick is replacing the proc for another one that does damage with the same or similar PPM. Also, while it does work it's only once every 10 seconds.

I don't even remember that this exists. For 8 hours I'd at least use it while leveling.

Rad paired with SS is just dumb thick strong which explains not feeling follow-ups. Try the (near) immortal build in my signature for another feeling of being a super hero wading through throngs of enemies. It was such a nice leveling experience I'm considering making another and this time level it over the red side.

Kinetic Melee is a problematic set at the moment. It hits weakly and the last power, the T9, animates so slowly without any benefits (the crit able ATs have their T9 reset Power Siphon at least) that it's better to just spam the first three attacks. Now looking at the build you missed on a ton of juicy bonuses by not completing the sets you left unfinished, and also made the error of leaving Overload toggled on which skewed the final numbers but that's easily fixed. Untoggling Overload shows you got S/L defense down back at 46% (it should be at least 45%) but Cold/Fire is at 36% (not a huge problem since not many enemies use cold or fire) and Energy/Negatic is at 39% and 30% respectively (which, yes, is a problem since those two are everywhere in the game). Fortunately it is easy to fix. Swapping the slotting with Power Siphon and Focused Accuracy and making it all Gaussians adds another 2.5% to all. Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge is usually desired. Can only have 5 of them slotted but worth chasing. This rule of five applies everywhere and you can check if it's been transgressed here in View Active Sets: That's why I have Weave and Kinetic Shield slotted with LotGs (regen and +HP is nice but not THAT important) instead of Power Shield (1.5% S/L resistances is better in my opinion, but I had reached the limit of 5-of-a-kind and so had to change). You forgot to add both +3% defense to all uniques which is a big 6% accounted for in the 45%. You also forgot the 5% to all resistances in Shield Wall. Hasten is a good power to have since it has a large chunk of recharge. Recharge will make Power Siphon and Energy Drain/Energize come back faster. When I finished I had free slots so I pimped up things like Super Jump, Overload, Boxing and Brawl to push your slow resistances to 90% (the more slow debuffs the slower your attacks and your movement becomes which can be deadly against some enemies) but those are flex spots and can be removed and placed somewhere else. For example the Unbreakable Wall unique gives 100 HP and might be worth over 10% slow resists (but we get HP back from inspirations and Energize but can get the slow resists only from powers and IOs), but it's just 10%. Worth it? Not worth it? MATHS! I think it's worth keeping the extra 10%. But the 2.5% to S/L in Launch could be worth swapping to get that 100 HP. Btw, the Launch slots can go to Combat Jumping if you'd rather pimp that out. If you really do want to keep Concentrate Strike regardless let me know and we'll see what we can shuffle. Probably Overload and then scrounge slots from somewhere. All in all you just got tripped by Overload which is an easy mistake to do when starting but not a biggie. Jynami Shui - Brute (Kinetic Melee - Energy Aura).mbd

Math is fine. It's when the alphabet joins in that the mathapocalypse starts.

Half the powers are not slotted on my end: You can fill your two missing powers with Rending Flurry (a staple, it's a point blank AoE. I could even say to trade Shred for Rending Flurry since Shred is a cone and will literally hit half the enemies RF would) and Ground Zero (super long recharge but once loaded with procs it's a good PbAoE. I would suggest looking at the builds posted over the thread in this forum I mentioned above and then also the ones posted in 'Different Axe builds but which to pick' posted over the Scrapper forums (you would have to change the Scrapper ATOs for the Brute ones but the Rad Armor part would be the same) since Mid builds have a lot of complexity. Once you have those builds you can swap the primary to Savage Melee and try to emulate the previous slotting to reach the same numbers.

17. Notice how 10, 11 and 12 are missing.

That proc is not very good. The Archetype Origins (called ATOs for short) for Brutes are pretty horrible which is sad because ATOs are usually pretty good for other ATs (archetypes, or classes as they are known in other MMOs). What the one you asked about does is give a 20% regeneration stack and a 6.6% endurance discount buff. Both can stack up to five times, so 100% regen and 33% endurance discount. It's not BAD, but, it's not great either. But outside of the proc the bonuses are pretty decent with smash/lethal defense, resistance, etc which is why you still see it commonly slotted even so. For the second question it's actually 10% every, I think, 10 seconds, to gain X in an absorb shield that takes damage before you do. But under the hood the chance goes up (if I recall correctly) the lower our HP goes. So it's common never to see it happen at full HP and then see it pop up when out HP starts taking a beating (which is when we'd like to have it anyway). What causes that is actually the unique proc (the 'chance for +absorb'). Despite being nice to have and useful especially as how it tends to trigger when we actually need it, the set is a staple of the game because it comes chockful with good bonuses. The main one is the massive 8.75% recharge, but then the 2.25% resistances to smash/lethal (commonly known as S/L), the HP buff, and the endurance discount is nothing to sneeze at.

Lol

9. If you're the Tank don't go showing off how well you survive by abandoning your team of squishies to solo the other half of the map.

Well, I wasn't going to add more to this subject but since the little barbs keep on coming I'll add some more after all since some people seem obtuse to what a devil's advocate it. When we claim something in this forum we usually ask for a dev to chime in, and when they have then it's the word of god and it's settled. When there are lore doubts in GW2 and confirmation is asked because so much stuff is head-canon and a dev chimes then the matter is settled. When confirmation is required in Blizzard forums a blue name is usually asked for, and when it replies the matter is settled. In none of these are people from outside chiming in accepted as actual proof. The point I was trying to make which is then lost in 'Sovera does not believe we actually have NCsoft's permission, hahaha, what a moron!' is that we have Homecoming word it is done, and a magazine. Do I actually expect NCsoft to make a press release about this? No. Do I assume Homecoming and the magazine are lying? Also no. Perhaps it was my fault for assuming that 'devil's advocate' was a well known idea, but this is the same forum that had a whole brouhaha because niggardly had an N, an I, and two Gs so omg don't use that word.

Oh man, I have bad news for you regarding comics.

There is always the base 5% chance to miss just like us having 45% defense still means we get hit 5% of the time so more than 45% is not needed (with caveats such as debufs or AVs having higher chances to hit, etc).

Not level 3. Relative level. That's the +1, +2 enemies, as in you being 50 and them being 52. Can't go higher than 95%, and after you slot your T3 Alpha all 45+ mobs become -1. So +4 enemies turn into +3. Under level 45 this does not happen but it's not common to fight +4 enemies while under level 44. If it does happen it does warrant having a Kismet slotted in.

You're welcome 😄 And it's not a problem. Procs are actually not good in auras (except in the original Irradiated Ground in Radiation Melee, but that's been 'fixed' since) because part of the formula involves AoEs. If the power is an AoE and depending on how wide it is, the chances for a proc to go off lower. Then auras only check for procs every 10 seconds. So every 10 seconds there is a chance for a proc to go off. Not efficient. Some AoEs are decent with procs but it's a case by case basis. To see this consider the rule of thumb: 1) don't slot in an aura, 2) check the proc rate: Hover the mouse over the damage numbers and this tooltip will pop up. The damage proc is the 71.75 (3.5 PPM). The tooltip is cluttered but where it will say (PPM) is where the chance for the proc to go off will be. In this case 87% is magnificent since the ceiling is 90% and it cannot go higher. A damage proc in an AoE can go down to 33% is poor, but, it's in an AoE and you'll be surrounded by enemies so there is bound for some of them to be hit anyway. But then to muddle the waters (which is why I say to inspect in a case by case basis) we have our lord and saviour Fire Melee with something like this ever 5-6 seconds. So with AoE or single target powers always check the chances. Powers with fast recharge like the first attack we can pick (we call them T1, T2, T3, etc because it's their tier) will have something very bad like 17%. At that point we might as well slot bonuses instead of a damage proc. But attacks with a longer recharge can go up to a respectable 50% and still be available every 4-5 seconds thanks to having stacked all those recharge bonuses.

It's definitely improved. You can still not worry much about Toxic/Psi since it's not that prevalent and your Ground Zero now has too few procs making it not as useful. Energy Transfer doesn't, in theory, need so much recharge and since it costs zero endurance it also has zero need for endurance reduction. I say it doesn't need recharge because I loathe using it in its slow 2.9 second form. I prefer using it only after Total Focus so that it's fast. So TF is the linchpin. But ET is pretty powerful and worth using even slow but ugh, 2.9, UGH. The two slots in Punch are not adding as much as you may think. It's 1.5% to psi/toxic/smash/lethal putting them at 80% S/L and 75% toxic. Putting those two slots in Fallout Shelter leaves S/L at 81% and T/P at 77% instead. You have overdone the accuracy in many things. Place your relative enemies at +3 and then check the accuracy of each power. You'll want it at 95% where possible. With Focused Accuracy on you can dump the Kismet and recover one slot. Taking a look at everything some compromises were made but your GZ, ET, TF, and RT boast better damage numbers now and you're still squeaking to 40% SL/M as well as almost 85% to S/L/E. Brute (Energy Melee - Radiation Armor)-WIP.mbd

In no particular order: Small bonuses are small but stack up. You can get something like 30% for a particular resistance by adding them. Recharge is the same and adding more recharge from bonuses stacks. Sometimes to a point where Hasten is permanent. Split IOs like damage/recharge are more powerful than single stat ones. Not that it may be visible at first glance when a level 50 accuracy is worth 42% (you chose SO in Mids which is why you see 32%, but generic IOs go to 42%) and a damage/recharge goes to 26%. But basic math shows it gives 52% instead of 42%. Looking at Particle Shielding your current slotting gives it 94% heal and 94% recharge, but we change to a Preventive Medicine and now it gives 73% endurance discount, 97% heal, 73% recharge, on top of giving 2.5% resistances to Smash and Lethal, 3% resistances to fire and cold, 3.75% endurance discount to all your powers, and 8.75% recharge to all your powers. So even losing some recharge from 94% to 73% it recoups back with the bonus and is actually at 80% recharge. Reiterating what I said in the guide you don't lost anything by buying more expensive IOs since they can be sold back or just passed on to an alt. You may balk at seeing each piece of Preventive Medicine is worth around 2-3 million each, but, once bought they are for your whole account to use forever and ever. Endurance problems are no longer a problem once you get a Theft of Essence proc in Radiation Therapy, and of course sprinkle endurance reduction in your attacks. Endurance reduction in attacks helps a lot more than it does in your toggles. One endurance reduction in your toggles is enough. Meltdown is a bit obsolete by now. Not completely, and since it is a single power it's fine to keep and use it, but as I showed in the other thread we can reach 85% to a few resistances by using the bonuses and the incarnate powers (incarnate powers are a level 50 thing). Procs are useful, but less so in your case since they follow a formula based around recharge and your attacks are pretty fast so they don't get a lot out of procs who will have a low chance to activate. It's fine to load attacks with procs, but it does come at a cost of not slotting other things or losing on slotting sets for their bonuses. When building with sets you can just erase your SOs be it in game or in Mids. They cost peanuts and are not worth keeping. If you did check the guide you'll know that one Merit is worth around 200k. A complete build in generic IOs at level 22 (generic IOs never turn red after 5 levels like SOs do) costs around 2 million and will last until level 50 if need be. A new character can earn about 3 million in the first half hour of their life if they are strapped by cash, or just about 2 mill if ignoring the non-play aspect (going around picking badges) and just hitting things and leveling up. This involves selling Merits. Have you checked how many you have yet?