Sovera

Fire Ar-... <_< >_>

Valid. All powers have at least 99% to hit +3 enemies though so no kismet needed unless hitting +4 enemies. I know what you mean about the Ice/Flash arrow but I don't see it the same way. Flash needs to hit the enemies, is affected by purple patch (not just effect but duration of the debuff), and anyone not in range will not be debuffed. Tbh I would rather have the defense numbers. Ice Arrow could indeed warrant being used as an extra to help ST with the help of procs, but I just feel that a Blaster ought to blast, not CC, and as you've pointed out in the last line, any non water skill is not building stacks. I already have a self-contained ST rotation (though weak looking numbers with 312, 400 and 409 which look almost more like Sentinel numbers than Blasters). Edit: took and procced Ice Arrow (four damage procs of which one being the purple Hold damage proc, +3 acc/dmg Hami, +5 damage Apocalypse, so no recharge to maximize procs, ED-ed damage and 95% acc to hit +3 enemies) and ended with 286 damage, same cast time as Hydro Blast. Hydro Blast does KD and has a FF proc in it, but Ice Arrow does a Hold which is useful. In terms of raw power it's not the best ST damage I was sold though 😛 (unless Mids lies which is not uncommon either). Glue Arrow does seem to do pretty decent damage for an AoE, and the -speed would stack up nicely with the -speed from Whirlpool. Not sure what I would sacrifice for it though. I could trade Steam Spray for it, but not sure what I'd light Oil Slick with when I am alternating with Geyser instead of using both at the same time. Steam Spray also does a fair bit more damage than Glue Arrow. Hmm...

I'm not a Blaster expert, but being a bit sick of playing melee I've been puttering around with other ATs. That said I'm no expert so critiques are welcomed. One of my dislikes of Blasters is the long recharge on the nuke (yeah, it's petty, I know) with it only available every two spawns. Hence I took Water for: - More recharge with FF procs in Hydro Blast and Water Burst. - Self-heal to help keep HP up. Tactical Arrow is taken for: - Good passives to stay fully ranged. - More recharge with Upthrust and Gymnastics. - Oil Slick doubling as a second nuke allowing to stagger the use and bypass my peeve of only have a nuke every two spawns. According to Mids Oil Slick actually does more damage than Geyser while also recharging faster (it is a DoT instead of a nuke though so not conducive to solo play). The idea is to have 45% ranged and then hover blast fully ranged. Since none of the shields gives Ranged defense and slotting for S/L felt superfluous I chose a S/L resist shield instead. Regardless it is meant to blast from afar and in a team. From what I see I can do an attack chain of Water Jet, Dehydrate, Hydro Blast, start over. This will naturally lead Water Jet to have the repeat mechanic though misses will have it eaten by Dehydrate. For regular play it seems logical to boost the weak link (Tidal Forces) with a Gaussian and then alternate. Upthrust (it does +recharge and Geyser is the slowest nuke so it helps getting it back a little bit sooner), Geyser, dump all the AoE, mop up with ST. Next spawn Tidal Forces, Oil Slick, dump all the AoE (Steam Spray will ignite Oil Slick), mop up with ST. Water Blast is notorious for the rubbery ST damage though but perhaps Oil Slick will be the boost it needs. Otherwise Energy/ is a consideration since it too has places to slot FF procs and the damage looks better on the surface (but in practice may suffer from the KB>KD slot).

You have the reverse idea here (but pay attention that trite as it sounds having fun with the character will be more important than min max picks that don't click), Water is good AoE but mushy single target damage despite the mechanic you've mentioned, Ice is good single target damage (some of the best ST if using a build with tailored procs in the attacks) but its the AoE that is mushy (anecdotal, but I remember being turned off at throwing Blizzard + Ice Storm and seeing minions surviving. Which is -not- what I expected when dropping a nuke). Rad is hurt by the long animations despite having good procs (unlike Ice which is mostly fast animations) but does not have any special benefits that I find important (I mean, it does lower defense on the target, but this is not something I find of use). Things to consider: Water comes with a built-in heal so it lends itself to soloing and even taking down hard targets. This is more important when the secondary has no heal (such as /cold) but recouping HP simply by attacking has worth when doing more extreme soloing such as tackling AVs.

Is this a font made for ants!?

I'm not a Controller player since ultimately not being able to kill enemies gets to me even when I'm teamed, but I like both builds that were posted. The low damage of Ice Control should be helped by the double layer of Confuse though both rely on going into melee range which is not something I can condone 😄 That said the emphasis on chasing Fire&Cold resistances seem a bit gratuitous unless something has changed. Those two were always considered low priority since S/L and E/N are much more common, and, in particular, a Controller ought to have groups CCed. If there are free mobs hitting back then the Controller is slipping. I've tried my hand at the last posted build. Take it with a grain of salt since: A) I don't play Controllers to begin with. B) Both builds look already pretty tight and thumbs-up-y. I took out the mass immobilize for Hasten stemming from my dislike of it, but obviously replace Hasten for it if desiring it. I would have changed SJ for Fly and just hover out of reach while both PbAoE fields did their thing and Frost wailed on the enemies, but that's just me.

The content started ultra hard and taking multiple hours and triple digit deaths but it's slowly going down. Now we have public runs at a bit less than one hour and single digit deaths. Anyway, I started a bit strong on my first post, but I think that the advice of starting your own group ought to let you do the content you care for on the AT/build you care about. I could be wrong because people dropping out at seeing the group comp could well be a thing, but I still feel (feelings are not a good measurement though) that there are enough players to replace those who drop out.

I haven't even done the new content starting from new Aeon. You are not the only one who liked the everything-goes-anyone-works game we have(had?). The shift with a oh-a-hundred-deaths-and-three-hours meta is of no interest to me. So I haven't touched it. But as you've pointed out it's currently 0.3% of the game content. Even lower HMs are not as stringent as four stars. There is plenty to do. Just like in other games where people complain they try to get into a group and can never seem to the solution to your current problem is the same though: make your own group! Now if you do say that you tried to make it and had a hard time because people would be invited, look around, then drop out of the group? Okay, we'll get back to it. P.S. The devs have not excluded anyone. Like in other games with tight metas and PuGs it is the -community- that excludes others based on a perceived meta (that class does 10% less damage than that other class? No thanks, that 10% will be super duper uber important!). Communities but of friends or SGs will take a player instead of a class/AT, but ultimately results are what matter. It is nice to wander off the beaten track and explore, but not if it costs the other seven people pain out of stubbornness.

Taking Hover and we be well up in the air sounds like a plan. Dunno how it would work out in practice.

Why are you mad? This has long since been predicted. The game was incredibly easy and we could take anything and anyone just to fill eight slots and it would be done. Now it is hard and the whateverhappygolucky meta got tightened. ...which is logical? It's not like MMs are in a good place as we are right now. You know what I did not read in your list? How you were making your own team and people would join and then leave the team when seeing you were an MM.

Gauntlet is not needed to prevent runners. All Tanker primaries have a taunt aura as it is which takes care of that. With it said I don't think Tankers need anything since the OP is forgetting the inherent ALSO adds 50% radius to cones and PbAoE, and that works solo and in teams.

At the risk to re-re-repeating myself, Fire Armor/Ice Melee. I parrot this so much people must be sick of it, but I find Fire Armor helps bridging the gap that Tanker damage has while Ice Melee (Ice Patch specifically) adds a layer of extra security. Ice Patch is like having another defensive toggle. Which is to say that all by itself it won't perform miracles, but then we have our actual toggles stacking their protective powers on top of it. Attack cycle is simple as well. Freezing Touch, Ice Sword, Frost, Ice Sword. Repeat. Add Burn when ever it is up. Ice Patch if in trouble or if foes are troublesome, or you just want to watch mobs breakdance over a field of napalm. There are tons of other good combos though and you will get good suggestions in this thread. Invulnerability and Shield Defense and such. In my particular case I have played those combos and the damage just turned me off. I can't deal with slowly whittling enemies down when in solo mode (in teams it does not matter since the team is helping). Which leads me to my other suggestion that is Fire Armor/Martial Arts since the two complement each other. So with all of that said only go for Fire Armor if killing speed matters, but if that was the case you would probably be over the Brute or Scrapper forums.

True. I may be out of the loop but refusing someone because they are FF seems an odd thing. Unless running HM TFs.

I haven't tried Seismic yet. Does it work at all with a flying character?

As someone who likes heroes I do dislike the easy glib way of assuming the worst. I would rather think when there are corrupt Longbow they are ousted,

But what does it mean. Mason?

All the new PPs who have capes take precedence. They either debuff resistances or defenses and I'm not waiting to check which. Cryo bosses are a nuisance but not dangerous. The.. I forget the name, the red armored ones, I try to take down before they bubble up since after bubbling they run off and while I don't care about their piddly damage they will taunt and prevent me from fighting until I go dash to them and put them out of their misery. There is someone who does confuse but I have not cared enough to pinpoint them (so many other targets to take care of) but they can spectacularly screw a soloer's alpha. I depend on the initial alpha to cull the enemies since the Crey can be dangerous in numbers and seeing it miss because they are suddenly 'friendly'.... Same thing Succubi do, but CoT go from being a very dangerous group in the teens to being pushovers in the 30s-50s (mostly due to Focused Accuracy becoming available), in numbers or not.

One of those off-the-meta builds slotted for taunt or CC instead of damage.

Psi Melee isn't great and on a Tanker you'll be doubly slowed down if you're mostly soloing. It gets better once you get Mass Levitate and have a Forcefeedback proc in it. It won't get much better on a Brute but at least you'll do more damage, but either way prepare to see yourself slowed once fighting psi resistant mobs like robots. Kinetic Melee -also- is not amazing at the moment Brute or not. I find it more useful paired with something like Fire Armor since a Force Feedback proc in Burst speeds up everything but it's a set that works best only using the first three attacks and nothing that does that will do good damage.

Scourge is nice, but if I recall correctly it's a chance (not 100%) to do double damage once mobs are at 30% 50% HP or lower. What this means is while it looks good in practice most mobs don't have much HP for this to have as much impact as it may look (it's still only a chance at 50% as per https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Scourge 'Scourge is the Corruptor's Inherent Power. It is a random chance for bonus damage per attack, defined as granting a 2.5% chance for every 1% of an enemy's Hit Points below 50%. That is to say, if an enemy has 50% or more HP, Scourge will never trigger. But the lower the enemy's HP gets under 50%, the higher the chance of Scourge becomes until 10% HP, at which point and below Scourge is guaranteed to go off'). Corruptors damage may have a chance to shine more in hardmodes where mobs last longer. But Blasters' raw damage will not be matched.

Proc or offensive builds don't seem to make much sense for hardmodes. I predicted way back that all my tinkering with Fire Armor only worked thanks to Barrier as a panic button and would only keep on working until new content became harder. After that what is the point of running offense based tankerinos? It's still tanker damage and a Tanker is brought for the extreme survival it has. Even Fire/Martial Arts with its 45% melee/range/AoE and 90% resists to most all self buffed suffers from lack of DDR, even if managing to boost defense to softcap means that much as a buffer once staggered Barriers and shields are applied. Of course that at some point even four star will be speedrun and the chase for better times will birth a meta for offense base tanks. But not for PuGs.

😕

It's not a combat manga, so a bit harder to figure out. But Street Justice for the rough and tumble punching and kicking, or Warmace with one of the wrench skins. Super Strenght if wanting to lean on the power side, but the manga is more about being smart and sneaky than obliterating and face tanking enemies. My suggestion: Stalker/Scrapper. Super Reflexes/Willpower. Dual Blades (as small weapons as you can, knives preferablty)/War Mace (with appropriate skin as to be less of an actual mace).

For healing I used to go with two +3 acc/dmg Hamis, then two +3 heal/endurace Hamis, and finally two damage procs: This maximizes proc chance leaving them at : One of the procs can be turned into an dmg/end to finish EDing the stats instead: But there is a damage loss. The no recharge approach needs to take in consideration your attack chain. As a Stalker you have AS which will help, but if there are gaps then recharge at the cost of damage IMO. Midnight Grasp should be recharging in about 5 seconds, same as SL with no recharge, AS in 5 seconds as well and Smite in about 2 seconds. SL animates in 2.1 seconds, MG in 2.3, so that's 4.4 seconds accounted for, which means it should be fine once adding AS and Smite to the mix. If not wanting the heal then replace the end/heal for damage procs as long as endurance can take it. Or add one slot for +5 endurance and the other one becomes a damage proc.

WTB patch notes.