Sovera

It's plenty achievable. I think the worst time I had for Hasten was 150 seconds but it's usually in the 135 second range, so 15 seconds downtime. That said it's not *easily* achievable once we start wanting to also consolidate defenses and resistances. Price is, honestly, the least of a worry since money trickles in and IOs can be transferred between characters. For a long long long time, and I'm talking 20-40 characters long, I'd just transfer the IOs from one character to the next instead of earning a fresh 700-800 million each time.

Though to be fair at this point consider Widow or an Arachnos Soldier. You can be hybrid melee/range or even full on ranged and though there are some downsides imagine a Scrapper with a nuke but that also has Follow-up and Spin.

It really would be nice to get the suggested 'when solo all mobs have 100% HP and each extra person in the team adds (random numbers subject to tuning) 15% HP. A full team makes every mob have 200% HP'. Man, in one elegant swoop we'd fix the steam rolling and people would be able to land more than one hit before a spawn has melted.

Same. My complaints about the set are the whittling of a single target and how I am forced to toss two patch powers (and heaven forbid if the mobs move away from them) for my ST. Other sets will stop using their AoEs to focus on their ST attacks. I should actually test an ST run without Storm Cell and Cat 5 and see if the time lost casting those is made up by their lightning procs.

Same, I love Storm, but it's hard to STAY in love with it. Perhaps the changes will help. It's a great set to solo though. 33% defense (with Bio) and fighting real +4 (no level shift since recent level 50) in DA and surviving without much of a problem. But dat damage output... it's some slow whittling of enemies.... Looking darn cool while doing it though, pity we can't ditch Storm Cell and Cat 5.

Earth's Embrace is, strictly speaking, an HP buff rather than a heal. It does heal but just a bit and too long a timer to be depended on. Or I'm just spoiled by Healing Flames 😄

One of the main reasons to go Dark Armor is the stupendous heal in Dark Regeneration. If you skip that particular power then you might as well pick a different armor set. To be perfectly candid Elec Melee is in need of a tune-up from the devs and there are better choices, but if you're enjoying it then it will work regardless. Even if you eventually decide to play something else you can always transfer the gear you bought for it to the new alt so it's not a waste. Things to consider: - Havok Punch is a damage power and should be slotted for damage. The stun component is negligible and not worth slotting for. - Don't leave Vegeance toggled on since it gives the wrong idea about your resistance numbers. Vengeance relies on a team member dying and Vengeance being used on it. This happens but it's not something to rely on for 100% uptime. In most teams not even 20% uptime. - Same with Build-up which will give the erroneous idea of how much accuracy you need. - The Theft of Essence proc in Dark Regen is the important bit that makes Dark Regen's huge endurance costs manageable. You can swap the five other slots for anything, but dark regen wants accuracy and dark armor has a lack of Energy resists so I six slotted it. - Speaking of accuracy you already have enough even without Tactics toggled on so other than niche reasons there is no reason to take it. Tbh same with Maneuvers. Dark Armor has a giant problem with endurance and all those extra toggles will leave you unable to cope. I would even drop off Cloak of Fear since it has a stupendous cost of 0.52 and only two magnitude, which means it only works on minions, not even on lieutenants, and for that you already have Oppresive Gloom that does stun instead of fear, only works on minions as well, but at least is 'free' (costs negligible HP). - You don't need those slots to proc heals because you have the godly Dark Regen. - Toggles like Death Shroud are not the best place to have the Might of the Tanker proc since auras only tick once every 10 seconds. I changed a few things around. 77% resistances is what I consider to be the sweet spot since one more ATO stack (6.7%) and Barrier (permanent 5%) will neatly put us at 90%. More than 90% is useless. Defenses are not built for but Melee is at a sweet spot of 33%+. Iif you eat a small purple you have Melee at 45% which is a bit of an extra layer of protection. With 90% resistances even just 33% is good enough for most content. I toggled off most everything from the Leadership pool to keep your endurance manageable but once you're level 50 you beeline to the Cardiac in Alpha and that will fix most of your endurance problems at which point you can toggle them back on if you'd like, but other than Lightning Clap all your attacks have enough accuracy to hit +3 anyway, and your goal is not defense so Manuvers is not strictly needed. You CAN build to 40% defenses so that Barrier will put them at 45% but you'd have to ditch Leadership, get Fighting, get Weave, then move slotting a bit. It's doable, I've done it, but no sure it is what YOU want. Respecs are cheap so play around with stuff and see what fits you best. DAelec Tank.mbd

Not on Stalkers, but I do solo TFs regularly. The missions themselves are just regular mobs which you can control via the difficulty settings. So you can solo at 0x1, for example. But other than Posi 1 all other TFs will have AVs which cannot be lowered to Elite Bosses. AVs do require a bit more oomph than regular SOs bring to the table. Still doable, but you will want inspirations and probably temporary powers. The minions Vhaz summons will explode so you need to take them out with AoE or try to bait them into exploding (stand in melee for a few seconds and then run out). They are only called three times, I think. Vhaz will heal back to full at his second phase so you will need patience to whittle him down. If you buy envenomed daggers then spam them where you have a gap in your attacks, which, at that level, you're bound to have. The daggers will make his regen drop to a point you can comfortably damage it but your problem will come from two fronts: surviving the damage and your endurance. For the first purple inspirations (Lucks) will prevent damage and are indirectly better than greens. Have about 2-4 greens and the rest purples. If you find this is not enough then buy more and mail them to yourself as you can take them from the mail even mid fight and replenish your tray. For the endurance you use the Recovery Serum from the P2W vendor and when its down you sub in for blue inspirations. Considering dropping all toggles you don't need during the fight. By level 20-ish as you are you can start looking at buying better stuff than generic IOs. For example both the Stalker specific IOs will give you a large boost to damage since one of the procs gives a chance to your Build-up power to instantly recharge and other makes you hide again which ensures a crit. Take a look at my signature for some money making tips but even just selling merits will make you enough to start buying the cheaper stuff (a Gaussian proc in your Build-up will nearly double Build-up's damage boost for the first 5 seconds and costs only about 2 million). And purchase at least generic IOs since they won't go red in a few levels and have to be replaced.

Everything looks alright. I would place the ATO in Storm Cell instead of Ragnorok and then place another Decimation in Lightning Strike with damage procs since the build-up proc is near useless. Hailstone can proc a Force Feedback proc to help recharging everything even faster but then it has no place for a damage proc so I moved Apocalypse there to help prop its damage a bit. You don't need Tactics (you're already over the cap to hit +3 enemies) or Maneuvers (you're over the softcap), but you can put them back in if you'd like, or aim for something out of the epic pools such as another AoE? The world is your oyster. If it's a thematic character then forget it, but if not then consider Stone Armor since you get all the goodies same as SR (high defenses, recharge, recovery) but better psi protection and a damage boost from Brimstone. Lightnin Thrax - Sentinel (Storm Blast - Super Reflexes).mbd

Well, it's a really low bar 😄

Bruh, Dark is mediocre ST with mediocre to bad AoE. It's the tax it pays for being a set with a heal and an endurance recovery tool which unique from all melee sets (well, radiation melee has a heal, but it has conditions to it). The real sinner is the Soul Drain build-up power that is awkward as heck. Not for Snarky (who knows all I'm about to say since he's a Dark Melee aficionado): Dark Melee is great to prop up armor sets that need a little nudge. Stone Armor, for example, is a deity level armor set sinning only for the lack of a heal (it has regen which lacks a bit of oomph) and has endurance problems (the recovery it has baked in is not enough since it's a toggle heavy set). Stone Armor even has a bit of a damage boost with Brimstone to help Dark Melee. Or Shield that lacks any and all heal or recovery. Or to go balls to the walls monstrous immortal with DM/Rad Armor with three heals and endurance coming out of its ears.

Fire Armor can be as good as anything else, but the farming builds are not for general content and instead focus their defenses against fire attacks. I prefer building a general content character who then can farm but also be taken out and do a random TF with a random group or just go fight giant monsters. You don't even need to farm to make money as the best money maker is crafting and selling. But for leveling you just... play it normally, slot generics, slot it normally, then at 50 respec into fire farming. There is also a guide somewhere about starting a character to farm from level 1. It's just the same maps but with fewer enemies and the money made goes into slotting the character so it progressively gets better. At some point consider doing this with a second account instead of your main one since you can then use the farmer to powerlevel your characters. If not to 50 then just to get past the low level bump.

After the change to Irradiated Ground from Radiation Melee I can't recommend Radiation Melee out of good conscience. Which isn't to say you should drop that character if you are enjoying it. But consider Fire Melee, Axe, etc.

My problem with Dark Melee is the awkwardness of the Soul Drain. 2.5 seconds to cast is bad, but the long cooldown and awkward duration usually means we are fighting unenhanced because we don't want to use it unless surrounded by enemies. Ranged characters are the ones having t oworry about long recharge and awkward feast-and-famine moments. Melee characters are about consistent damage. Honestly, if you're new, I'd say pick Claws and use auras from the tailor to wreathe your fists in darkness and you'd have a better time while still have the dark look if it's something in your theme.

That's one of my strongest combos. Fortunately I already had a leveling build for it as well as an endgame so you can have both. Tweak them per your needs. Brute (EM Fire - Leveling).mbd Brute (EM Fire).mbd

Stalker. But I think even Stalker ends having to use Frost for ST if not wanting to dip into epic pool attacks.

The low damage of Sentinels weights on me. But I have a hard time making myself play an all ranged Fortunata when so many goodies are melee attacks, but I have a hard time making myself go into melee because otherwise I would just play a melee character. Looking at an all ranged Fortunata it seems to sin by lack of AoE. One nuke every 44 seconds, two possible cones with the new and improved Psychic Scream and we don't talk about Psinado though I suppose it's better than nothing. I'm no VEAT expert though, what do the better heads say?

I like your patch notes with numbers and that's how they should always be IMO. You can see how a power scales (Fate Sealed goes to 34%, for example) by moving the slider to level 50. Top left corner.

The counter point is that the IO system is geared towards making characters hardier but not stronger. So we can make a Blaster Sturdier, but only minimally make a Sentinel stronger

Focus from Claws.

To be honest anything works. One of my fastest characters was a Claws/Fire Armor Brute for obvious reasons. Claws/Bio Scrapper punches above its weight thanks to Shockwave spam constantly knocking enemies down. Brute and Tankers have slower recharge in Shockwave which does not make it as seamless as a Scrapper who will go into blending mode with Follow-up, Shockwave, Spin, repeat. Fire Armor/Claws Tanker is still one of the best offense oriented Tankers thanks to the perma 70% damage boost powering Burn and the constant Force Feedback spam accelerating it. Bio is focused towards ST damage, but Claws does AoE good especially on a Scrapper and once you can start spamming it at level 26 your durability goes up. You will need to slot a knockback to KD IO to not scatter the mobs though.

You're welcome, and I would not take Ball Lightning at all to be fair, I just wanted to leave your powers (mostly) untouched. You don't need Electrical Fences since you're a Brute and have an agro aura so mobs never run away from you which is what EF is meant to prevent. That said an extra AoE would not be amiss since Energy Melee is weak in that department. Instead I would go for either Soul Mastery and get Gloom, which is a strong single target move (but would need to find the slots for it) with Dark Obliteration (Ball Lightning, except it's dark themed). Or Energy Mastery for Focused Accuracy (not hugely needed but it does protect against accuracy debuffs, and best part, does not need slots) with Energy Torrent for a bit of an extra AoE (though it's a cone so it needs to be aimed, but we can slot a Force Feedback proc to enhance recharge times). Or you ignore the epic pools and just take Power Crash. It's a cone as well, but it's available at level 22 instead of 41, and it will prop your AoE up that is a bit weak with just Whirling Hands. As Troo pointed you can try the auras in the tailors, but that said if you like Mystic Flight there is no reason not to. Theme and enjoyment trumps 2% extra defense.

I have this old thing, I think everything is in place. You get 40% to S/L defenses (45% with Barrier) and 90% to most resistances with a second ATO stack and Barrier's 5%. This is not a leveling build though but sneeze if you'd like me to cook something. Tanker (Fire EM).mbd

In practice you will not notice a difference between 40 and 60%. If you are capable of it then defenses in the 33% range are the sweet spot since you can then use one small purple to reach 45%, but this is not a luxury that a Radiation Armor Sentinel has. If you're hovering out of melee range it already is a big boost in survival since mobs' ranged hits are weaker than their melee hit. For a first character I would have picked Elec/Bio or even Elec/Stone, but everything will work out in the end. Just don't push for more than +1x4 in the difficulty and lower it if it's too hard. As a Sentinel you should be starting the fight with Charge-up (with the Gaussian proc for another 80% damage) and your nuke which already cleans some of the enemies. That's why I worked your offense power up instead of boosting your defences. Defences you can just eat a small purple or two if you see your HP is dipping too low, but if few enemies survive your first volley of AoEs then there are fewer enemies hitting you in the first place. So what you want is a strong fast nuke that you always start the fight with. If you sneak on mobs, Charge-up, Ball Lightning, Thunderous Blast, Ground Zero, Ball Lightning, Short Circuit you'll have half the group dead in the first 10 seconds of combat. And yes, no one does generic IOs because there is no point unless it's a self-imposed constraint. If you took a look at the newbie guide you see how you make 1-2 million worth in merits in the first hour of making a character and that's just selling the merits earned. 1-2 million is what generic IOs cost to deck out a build at level 22. And that was in the first hour of having made the character. Now this might feel like I'm pulling your leg when I say it is a cheap build and then you have minimum 2 million per slot and sometimes as much as 7 million, but use the first build and then slowly transition to this second one one slot at a time. As I mentioned in the guide it's not wasted since you can then transfer that stuff to a new alts. Or even just sell it back. It's still a leveling build with some tweaks for a level 50 respec waiting, but that's a third build still. Cheap IO Sentinel v2 (Electrical Blast - Radiation Armor).mbd

Dark Armor does not have enough going for it these days, it needs a tune up. Try instead Radiation Armor for being pretty survivable or Fire Armor for extra damage. Stone is pretty decent these days but it lacks endurance recovery even with what is baked into the set. One of my best allrounders was a Claws/Fire Armor. Energy Melee/Fire Armor also had the best of both worlds with strong single target damage and Burn helping with EM's mediocre AoE. With enough money poured in anything will work though. So if you're sold into a particular theme it's fine to play it.