Sovera

Spun up an Ice/Stone. Stone is too tough to really need a defense primary but the extra recharge allowed it to to Freezing touch, Ice Sword, Frost. Repeat. That's one less Ice Sword than the usual rotation and with Brimstone helping I thought I'd see if it could make things happen. But it didn't. Both tries went over the 4 minute mark.

Ice melee in first? Energy Melee as B? Same as Dark Melee? Rad Melee first but just for farming? 😄 Okay.

Decided to try Elec Melee. I know, I know... But I have a secret to confess that I keep trying to make certain things work and see if I can find something that no one else did. So far it has the behavior expected from the 'AoE set' with a Yin cleared in 58 minutes, realizing I had slotted no damage procs in Chain Induction, starting over, and getting 53 minutes. Savage Melee got 42 minutes 🙂 There is some RNG involved from Freak Tanks healing, or not, and ressurecting, or not. But like Dark Melee it's just not keeping up. Now I do suspect Brimstone will play particularly well with Chain Induction (not backed by math) and I should find a short test in the level 35-ish range just for metrics since for level 50 metrics its usually the Trapdoor and pylon tests. Usual complaints apply (Thunderstrike not hitting hard enough for what it does, ST damage way too light, secondary effects as useless as Brute ATOs) but perhaps Brimstone can tip the balance a bit If Chain Induction proves to be a good carrier.

I've posted on a Savage/Stone before. Clears maps well, and the extra recharge from Stone makes for a 1, 2, 3 rotation. Stone is pretty tough too.

My simplest Rad rotation has been Devastating, Smash, Siphon, Smash. It's not hard to achieve. I've tried replacing Devastating by Contaminated (Siphon, Contaminated, Smash) and though the math seemed good when in an actual pylon test the damage was weaker than the Devastating rotation. But it still 'felt' better in leveleing and exemplaring, and even regular gameplay, by not leaning on Devastating's very slow animation and the healing output from Siphon doubling. But tests don't lie and the damage was pretty mediocre.

That's why I've replaced it with Combat Jumping in all my builds now. It loses 0.3%, I think, and CJ is almost free.

I'm not sure which. But if it has 50% to psi defense then yes.

You need to add 5% to Psi for Psi to be softcapped (so 50%) because Mids erroneously adds 5% to psi from Stone Skin. The Mids' devs know of this and it will be patched soon. Just like me you'll have to rework everything for those slots now 😄

I remember making this as a Tanker and having good fun with it, but it had Burn at 18 so the FF proc in Whirling Axe played very well together same as MA. With a Brute the starter will be slower though with it only having Whirling Axe and it being pretty poor damage. I'm tempted at trying it again now that I've licked the difficulty in fitting everything. It will have too many attacks though, but the recharges are lengthy and force it. Not Rad Melee this where a 1, 2, 3, 2 work. With this it's going to require Burn anyway, -and- four attacks. The rotation is going to be Burn, then spam everything with emphasis on the hardest hitters, but the way the recharges are the first skill used will be the first to recharge anyway. I tried removing Chop from the rotation but couldn't since nothing recharges fast enough to be re-used and make a working rotation. Truthfully it does not look like a hard hitting combo. None of the attacks get past 500 damage and the animations are slow. As much as we make noises about Devastating Blow it does over 250 more than the hardest attacks in Axe at the cost of 0.4 seconds more. I remember ultimately finding the damage too mushy on the Tanker despite the very good start but it's been long enough I do not mind giving it a go as a Brute. Also, funny enough despite being a bladed weapon and lethal damage, not one attack does -def.

What Warpact said, and linked.

Psi resist is a valid concern, though you do have softcapped defenses to it. If you have 140%+ defense without Kismet against +3 you'll have.. 200% against +1? No idea. You can see for yourself anyway. Change the options of Mids in Exemplaring&Math. 48% is to fight +3, 39% is to fight +4, 75% is to fight +0. What I mean with the Geode remark was the slotting of endurance in it though I realize you were aiming for the run speed unique as well. But since recovery is hardcapped it's smarter to slot health so time spent recovering in Geode is shorter, especially since it appears it gets broken easily.

Preventive Medecine is global, it will proc anywhere and does not require for a skill to be used for it to go off, and that change kills 8.5% recharge anyway. Shockwave not having a FF proc is sad 😛 Kimet's unique has no point. Every attack is already at 140% minimum to 170% chance of hitting +3. No Hasten, but taking Assault on a Scrapper, an endurance heavy build, is dubious. Geode hardcaps recovery so there is no point in slotting endurance there. Why slot Aegis with 7.5% movement speed and 3% defense against F/C when you can slot Titaniums with E/N resistance and HP? There are still improvements that can be made, but though the numbers are about the same with a bit more E/N the powers themselves are better slotted like this.

I can't help but feel that there is hyperbole to make things sound more dire than they are. I can't imagine a +4 Synapse (but +4 anything really) being so fast that no one gets a chance to hit. Even with a level 50 exemplared helping along. Lord knows I've done a +3 Manticore once where we took so long and people died so many times in the first mission we decided to start over with a lower difficulty. Level 50 TFs sure. Everyone is incarnated and IOed to some degree.

Ah, I thought you were talking about leveling since you spoke of Citadels and Synapses and Yins. ...you're seriously playing those at +4x8 and they melt so fast you're too slow to help?

From what others have tested Stone Melee is in the upper echelons of middle of the pack. Certainly good on its own but without battling for the first spot. This is ST alone. For AoE isn't not all that great with Fault having failed at becoming an AoE leaving only Tremor at 32. You're going to want -something- to help, or find some way to turning Fault useful (horrible accuracy, low damage, long recharge). For general gameplay it can be near Ice Melee in terms of safety once you get to a point where you can juggle mobs with Fault and Tremor. they keep bouncing while you keep killing. I'm thinking a Brute in particular can be made to shine as it keeps mobs bouncing on top of a Burn field (incidentally helping with the lack of AoE the set has). Now that said the game is easy enough that the gimmick of keeping mobs bouncing may not particular useful when we can just kill stuff, but, on the other hand, Fault does (a bit of) damage, Tremor does damage, Burn does damage, so keeping mobs locked is just part of the gameplay.

This complaint is a common one, but what you talk of is done at all levels. If content is ran at +0 or +1 it is literally the easiest possible. Content done at the easiest is... easy. Easy content is rushed. Trying to go slowly is something we force ourselves to do, not something that happens. Even when I solo the TFs I notice there is no challenge to it. I'm mostly immortal, so there is no sense of danger, there is only a long series of missions with a ton of flimsy enemies that need to be arrested. This is part of the whole 'but if I kill them without fear then why do I need buffs or a Controller?'. The answer to all of this is rising the difficulty level. There is no half way around it. If the content is too easy obviously people will just blitz it like a warm knife through butter. I'm not going to say you will find people willing to tackle difficult content while leveling but try advertising your TFs as +2, and if you find +2 too easy, then +3. But advertise the fact, don't spring it by surprise. Literally say you're aiming for more difficult missions so anyone who joins will do it knowingly.

ET requires no recharge since it comes after TF, and requires no endurance reduction since it's free.

Brute is, in theory, the version you want to run Fire Armor with so the mobs don't run away the second Burn is dropped.

Rebuilt my Fire/EM Tanker when I realized I could have a rotation without T1 or T2. Unfortunately it has a bit of a gap before Burn is back (about half a second?). Regardless it's not too bad considering it is done with raw power and no -res are involved. 3:11 3:20 Rotation is Total Focus, Bone Smasher, Energy Transfer, Burn, Bone Smasher. Repeat. Degenerative 25% chance for -HP, Assault unclicked, Musculature 45%.

Better regen, better endurance, better damage (AAO's worth goes down as enemies die and the first AoEs ensure this). But no agro aura automatically puts it behind Shield. Still fine if playing in a team since -someone- will be a Brute or a Tanker.

Consider this. More resists, more recharge, more damage. You lose Stalagmites but, tbh, once every 24 seconds? Not really a loss when you can juggle Tremor and Fault much more efortlessly. With the FF proc in Tremor the recharge in Fault is further lowered and you can keep mobs locked down. You also get a travel power.

Well, on BU, of course. You're right that I only left implied about it being slotted in FU/Feint though. In BU it's a big difference.

There is not much gain in boosting because ED and the clamping down on stats when exemplaring kills most of the boost. Attune is where it's mostly at. It's not a one answer fits all though because some things are worth being boosted.

People rave a bit too much about Gaussian because they haven't actually tested it. Bopper puts it at a 10% chance of going off. I mean, yeah, it will go off, eventually. Bio is just too squishy for me. Try Stone for a happy medium. Not nearly as squish and a nice damage boost. Of course not the same Bio times though but at some point we need to consider if we are going to play it or just pew pew at a pylon with it.

Not at all. I'm still helping people but I do feel it slowly coming as well. You're not incorrect that someone with 20 levels 50 should be at a point they no longer need to request builds. I'll wait until a build is posted and then post some tweaks to it.