Sovera

Synapse is one of the worst to get people for, and I say this as someone who runs/ran 3-4 Synapses a week during my peak in HC. Teaming just makes everything too easy. Even problematic places like Night Ward or First Ward are bulldozed where a solo or duo player can be flattened. Small teams at least have some elements of risk like when we reach the final room of Yin's TF and the big ambushes come and players start dropping under the overwhelming numbers and it's all clutch plays, kiting, inspirations used at the right moment.

Kinda weird, kinda awesome. Can you still use the base portal? If so try using base 8888 to move around, or the portal by the Atlas tram.

You have two AoEs in Burn and Tremor, you should not really need three and a half AoEs since Burn + Tremor already kills most minions and you're left with 4-5 mobs after the initial contact with the enemy and the second time Burn is up it kills the rest of the lieutenants. Try to copy some of the slotting if nothing else and watch Seismic Smash go from 545 to 791. Also don't slot Avalanche in Burn since it pushes mobs away unlike doing it in any other AoE. Leveling until 28 without AoE will be a pain but Fault is useless in that department anyway. ST rotation is something like Burn, Seismic Smash, Stone Fist, Heavy Mallet, Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Stone Fist. Repeat. In the early levels without as much recharge add more Stone Fists to fit between each attack. It's a good attack so you're not missing out on doing it. In AoE try to always use Burn first before Tremor so that Tremor's animation time eats at Burn's recharge time and the FF procs speeds both. That makes them align to be used at the same time despite the disparate cooldowns. The last 5% of resistances and S/L defense comes from Barrier.

Not the best place to ask about farming. You will get better results from checking the farm builds over 'Farm Fresh' in the Guides section.

A Brute for the fat effect of low level Fury. Probably Claws since it gets its super good AoE by level 6. Secondary barely matters for such low levels since no toggles will have a big effect. Maybe Bio since by level 10 you get another damage boost from Adaptation.

Be sure to have the latest Mids, just in case.

All the attacks are at around 200 to 220% chance to hit +3 in the build they posted. But you need only to take Focused Accuracy to avoid accuracy debuffs. That said everyone is right and taking your damage aura is good and no need for the Kismet either. If you go to your Mid's options, then 'Exemplar&Math' you can switch the ToHit to 48 which is hitting +3 enemies which is where you will be after slotting at least a T3 in Alpha. With your build and without the Kismet or Soul Drain toggled on you're already at 110% for most attacks (cap is 95%). With one target in Soul Drain range this shoots up to 233% chance for most attacks. Consider that the Tanker proc in Shadow Maul gives 6.7% to all resistances and stacks three times of which Mids only shows one. That means your build is already past 90% and there are another 6.7% to come (consider that two stacks is reliable and three stacks is a bit more rare between misses and proc chances). So I would lover resistances a bit to account for an incoming 6.7% (ergo put your resistances at 83-84%). If you intend to take Barrier as a panic button you can account for another 5% on top of that, but Dark being endurance heavy you will want Ageless and/or Cardiac instead. Something like this I guess. A nice row of 85% waiting for a second ATO proc, better Hasten, bit more energy resistance, more S/L defense (though it is meant for Barrier which you will probably not be taking, though Cardiac alone might suffice). I did ditch Taunt because you can go and punch what you need to taunt but if you want it back drop Combat Jumping even if it means 7.5% less recharge. Also more damage with better slotting for your attacks.

You will just confuse players by referring to a 'cosmic' whatever. They will think it is a power or something but it's just a SG base with portals and 'cosmic' the roleplay name.

After leveling the Rad/Fire with Contaminated Strike (again) I'm going to place it as my first choice for a Brute. An early rotation, early Build-up, and good early AoE coupled with that small heal and an FF proc. Irradiated Ground taking both -res to help damage a bit allows to triple damage proc Burn making it a nuke Blasters would be envious of (small hyperbole). Even though the single target damage is lower in terms of pylons it is as many have said in the past that pylons are not a metric that matters (even if we ignore the outrageous gaming of that test with -res procs and effects making certain builds 'winners'). In more practical terms the Contaminated Strike (henceforth just called CS) build gives the same results while being more practical. I am just returning from a Yin test (no insps used, done at around 35-40, amplifiers still running, no mobs skipped) which was done in 39 minutes on the dot. This puts the CS build on par with Claws/Fire which was the champion so far. I bring the Claws/Fire into the conversation to mention how it has better pylon times (2:15 in-stars-aligned but more often 2:30 to 2:45) than the CS (invariable 3:20 upwards). Energy Melee is a beast doing 2:30 times without -res involved (brings back the gaming of the test with -res procs). Someone looking at the pylon times would think that, well, the pylon winner obviously does more damage, so, obviously, it will keep on doing more damage as time goes and the distance between both will only grow the longer the test. But in practice both achieve the same result despite there being an AV at the end where ST damage is meant to matter more. If the build can get past the tanky Hopkins and the Countess the ST is good enough. In terms of leveling Rad having BU makes a difference. How much of a difference? I ran a Fire/Energy Melee Tanker and was disgusted at all the antics and kitting I had to do in Posi 1 since I had no BU to punch through Circle of Thorns debuffing/buffing. It took one hour and fifteen minutes to solo it at 0x8. The Rad/Fire Brute did it 45 minutes. Partly because of Fury (but I have done Tanker times of 45 minutes in Posi 1), of course, but no kiting needed since burst was at hand. The CS benefits were mentioned in the previous post so I won't elongate the conversation upon it, but it's a squishy build and requires doing the early levels with a small purple until all the slotting is in place. It's a resistance armor and it requires both shields slotted but also the heal. Once everything is in place the inspirations are no longer needed even when exemplared down.

I didn't say that 😛

Hence 'rarely'. How often does the typical player go hunt in Boomtown for Babbage?

That's why I said sticking to. Radio missions give no money (if using double XP) and give no merits. As per the OP for a newbie who sticks to them will find themselves at 50 without a dime to their name as more than once this has come up.

We rarely need to travel more than 30 seconds at a time. My punctual need for more than 30 seconds is going to all the patrol spots in Synapse, and my work around is picking the (free) jump pack from the P2W vendor since it makes for a ghetto Afterburner effect. Base: With Afterburner: With Jump pack:

You bring no context. Are you saying Hemmo is actually good or are you saying that it's bad?

Gotta love how the fix to Hemmo was making it as bad for Stalkers as it is for everyone else 😄

I like duo-ing but seldom do so. Even people who like duo-ing with me get tired of it and want to go back to full teams. I like soloing, but barring the very first two TFs near-at-level all other TFs have zero risk at +1x8 and become too slow and grindy at +2x8. I don't like full teams anymore. We blitz against everything and kill everything including AVs in seconds.

Hemmho isn't broken. It's just undertuned and mathematically better to span the first three attacks instead. It can still be used by those who like it though, it just has no benefits.

Now we can have Hover and Fly at the same time this is no longer the case. Stops on a dime and takes off at top speed without accelerating.

That's me and half my builds. Do they work good at 50? Yes. Do I want them to have most their goods and survive Posi 1 ran solo at 0x8 while doing so at a decent clip (under 50 minutes preferably)? Also yes. Do I actually go and solo Posi 1 with a character once having leveled to 50? No 😄

I have revisited the Rad Melee that abandons Devastating Blow For Contaminated Strike (henceforth CS). In the past this did not have great pylon results and as such Devastating Blow was needed to improve the ST damage. The CS build best times are around 3:20 where the Devastating build swings between 2:30 to three minutes. Both cheat with -res procs which have a lot less impact in actual gameplay than in pylon tests. I've been messing around with this but have not managed to improve on the pylon times, but since then another test has come up which is the Trapdoor that better reflects actual gameplay. And as it turns out the CS build does catch up in actual gameplay. The previous best with a DB build that did not have Atom Smasher was 5:55 then improved to 4:42 with Atom Smasher. The Contaminated Strike managed a best 5:02 run -without- Atom Smasher and at worst simply kept up with the DB build with a 5:50 run (there will always be a bit of RNG involved in this so please don't look at it as a omg so much better version). Despite this with both at pretty much neck to neck then why go with the CS build if DB has better single target damage? IMO here are the reasons why it can be a valid choice: - Greater healing output. With DB the use of Radiation Siphon starts at 2.9 + 1.7 + 2.4 = 7 seconds the first use and then 1.7 + 2.9 + 1.7 + 2.4 = 8.7 seconds until combat finishes. With the CS build Radiation Siphon is used every 2.4 + 1 + 1.7 + 1 = 6.1 seconds each time. While it does depend on receiving the irradiated mechanic we can force three heals every 30 seconds or less with FF procs which (barring misses) makes a staggering 60% heal every 30 seconds. As someone who soloed both AVs at the end of Manticore with the CS build let me say that the extra healing was noticeable. - Better leveling and better exemplaring. It's not gapless down to Posi 1 but Contaminated Strike recharges fast enough to be used between each attack. - Better endurance. Two runs of Trapdoor required one use of Consume and that one time it was because I let one of the Mu survive to the end of a pack. Toggling FA off was enough to run the pylon tests. - No 2.9 second animation locks and corpse blasting. 'Nuff said. - Despite Contaminated being the weak link it can be played around. The simple rotation above does not include Burn who rears up its head every 8 seconds. Each time it comes up two Contaminated Strikes can be removed for someone who wants to be more min maxy instead of just pushing buttons. One thing that definitely improves times on all builds but particularly Fire Armor is not wasting time hitting anything that isn't a boss. This is because of Burn that can two shot +3 lieuts and will one shot minions. Using a skill to hit a minion then using Burn means the previous skill was pretty much wasted since the minion would have died anyway. Best thing is keeping an eye out for HP bars and switch targets to hit anyone who has a full bar because good chances are that anything other than a boss that is at half HP will die next time Burn goes off. This is a reason why the Trapdoor test is not done at 100% capacity since the camera prevents looking around to check HP bars. For those interested in HP bars: /optionset ShowVillainName 1 /optionset ShowVillainBars 1 Build is not perfect. A hair too little defense and S/L is not capped by a few miserable %, but though I could fix both it would come at the expense of the purple slotting in Radiation Siphon. Hasten is already at a weak 140 seconds and without the purples it would go to 144 on top of no longer being accuracy capped for +3 enemies. Maybe I'll have a flash of brilliance later but I have already sacrificed Atom Smasher for the slots so I think it may have to live flawed. Current Trapdoor listing:

Tested a Contaminated Strike replacing Devastating Blow build. Despite the loss of ST damage (Devastating build does pylon times between 2:30 to three minutes where the Contaminated Strike swings betwen 3:20 - 3:30) in terms of actual gameplay there was either no loss or an improvement. Previous best with a DB build that did not have Atom Smasher was 5:55 then improved to 4:42 with Atom Smasher. The Contaminated Strike managed a best 5:02 run -without- Atom Smasher and at worst simply kept up with the DB build with a 5:50 run (there will always be a bit of RNG involved in this so please don't look at it as a omg so much better version). - Fire Armor/Rad Tanker: 6:57 (no Atom Smasher). - Rad Melee/Stone Brute: 6:13. - Fire/MA Tanker: 6 minutes. - Rad/Fire Armor Brute: 5:55 (no Atom Smasher). - Savage/Stone Brute: 5:47. - Claws/Fire Brute (no Shockwave): 5:06 - Rad/Fire Brute (Contaminated Strike build): 5:02 - Energy Melee/Fire Brute, my main: 4:57. - Rad/Fire Armor Brute (w/ Atom Smasher): 4:42 One thing that definitely improves times on all builds but particularly Fire Armor is not wasting time hitting anything that isn't a boss. This is because of Burn that can two shot +3 lieuts and will one shot minions. Using a skill to hit a minion then using Burn means the previous skill was pretty much wasted since the minion would have died anyway. Best thing is keeping an eye out for HP bars and switch targets to hit anyone who has a full bar because good chances are that anything other than a boss that is at half HP will die next time Burn goes off. This is a reason why this test is not done at 100% capacity since the camera prevents looking around to check HP bars. For those interested in HP bars: /optionset ShowVillainName 1 /optionset ShowVillainBars 1

I ought to make one instead of piggybacking on that guy's thread. I've been following your exploits on the different forums and you have a looot more patience than I do 😄 Nowadays it seems I never even get to 50 with a new alt.

TF is not the place to go wild with procs since it is the start of the rotation. TF wants maximum recharge and two procs because it's a great place for them regardless. ET on the other hand is the place to go four damage procs since it requires no endurance or recharge (assuming that no masochists are around who want to use slow ET). This change alone can net over 150-200 damage depending on the original slotting. My own Tanker has their ET at 794, for example, where a more typical five-Hectacomb-and-a-Touch-of-Death-proc is at 647. Gaussian in Invincibility is a bit hyperbolic. Double stacks happen but lets not go crazy and say that they happen all the time. With ten mobs in range the chance for Gaussian to go off is about 60% every 10 seconds (assuming ten mobs even fit in a 8y radius). After the initial AoEs and half of that number left it's down to 30%. I prefer it over BU to have control when it goes off (preferably at the start of the fight when there are more enemies around) but others may do as they please, just do so informed. With all said the damage will never catch up to a Brute just like a Brute will not catch up to a Tanker's resilience. For 90% of solo content a Brute will do the same as a Tanker, just faster. For 100% of teaming with any sort of buffs or shields the Brute will be as sturdy as the Tanker. Without buffing (either damage heavy team or just different buffs like a Kin) the Tanker comes back at being sturdier (there are outliers like Rad/Super Strength but it's about the OPness of the combo rather than the AT just like we used to have the Titan Weapons/Bio combo).

In the meanwhile I'm blinking at rares having shot up to 750k to 1 mill. They were about 400k before my break.

Sticking to radio missions.