Sovera

First of all, -you- have decided it is an exploit. It is cringy to have people deciding something as a 'moral' self imposed restriction and then wanting others to follow their own rules. This 'exploit' has been in the game since the beginning and has been around for longer than some people playing this game have been alive. But can you actually do it though? I'll await your explanation on how doing the hardest feat in the game sinking time and effort and game money does not interest you so you could do it if you wanted to but don't. Because you are minimizing the effort involved while doing a mental movie of clicking on an endless flood of of inspirations and effortlessly succeeding.

I'll preface by saying I don't mail insps. Considering it is not a gain to mail insps what, exactly, is being cheated off? It takes extra time, extra effort, and extra game cash, to perform the most difficult content that requires mailed inspirations. What a group will do in an hour may take three for the hardcore soloer. There is no gain for them. They did not get more rewards, or did the content faster. On the contrary it took longer and cost them. The OP showed that naive gentle nature of someone who thought they could just solo the TF to gain the new shinies without considering the massive effort involved and how much simpler and brain dead easy it would be to lock themselves in farm map and be able to earn one of those per hour. Seriously, it gets tiring to see the sneering posts.

Or just removed from the game altogether if it's going to be 'nerfed to the ground'. Once an option because so useless it is not used anymore just remove from the game altogether as there is no point in touting it as an option when it is not.

When you get incarnate level defenses it takes a good while to provoke cascade defenses though. That said it is solid as a slow moving train, but I can't bear the slow ass damage of MA even with Brimstone. Talk about softcap in Posi though, and Shield only could want those resists. I might put my money on Rad Melee instead of MA but then no AoE until 26 (Proton Sweep isn't a real AoE), but Irradiated Ground's two -res procs go a long way into helping a Tanker feel like they are actually doing damage.

I remember people not playing TW or using procs for the same reason. It only took two years for TW.

I haven't had use for it yet but it just squeaks into softcap territory graniteless on a Brute and that's something that gets whittled by defense debuffs. On a Tanker I got some silly numbers like 76% resists across the board with two stacks on top of softcap defense on top of DDR. Also Incarnate defense levels with MA on top of the rest behind. On a Brute/Scrapper it has an E/N hole. On a Tanker it has... no hole? It's the new Shield. But less DDR.

Fire Breath sucks. A medium range narrow cone has zero place in a melee set. It's fine for ranged since they will be at range, but someone in melee will have to leap away (or up) in order to make use of it, or be prepared to hit three mobs out of the ten surrounding them. Fire Sword Circle has nothing special to its name. It's damage is the normal PbAoE damage and it's animation is a touch slower. So basically the AoE is meh. Then we look at the ST and we look at pylon tests (useful as a metric if nothing else) and see it has.. actually okay times. Not better, not abysmal, but within the usual range. Except it has no useful effects, part of the damage is still DoT based (someone correct me but I believe the best chain doesn't include Greater Fire Sword?), and the animations are not particularly fast. Plainly it's not terrible, it's not great, it just slid into mediocre obscurity. But the game is easy enough that it works and things die so it hasn't fallen into really-bad-why-god-looking-at-you-KM. But it does fire damage that bumps its usefulness past pylon metrics since things that shine on a pylon (claws, DB, StJ, even Martial arts) get roadblocked by the very common S/L resistance in actual gameplay. Tbh if it wasn't for the late AoE (I don't consider Fire Breath an AoE) meaning three TFs hitting things one by one, I'd try a Fire Melee for funsies. Actually, only Tankers and Brutes get the late AoE

I'm not 100% sold on proc bombing being the right approach for Scrappers. This is opinion and not backed by math. But, the strength of the Scrapper is the critical chance. Procs don't crit. So maximizing damage so that it amplifies crits seems smarter. And that's without mentioning all the problems that proc bombing has like stealing recharge and endurance reduction, furthermore when coupled with Shield that has no means to recover it.

What's her name... The doctor we rescue during Moonfire. I usually solo it and it's rare the time I am able to actually rescue her. One time I decided, okay, we are in a narrow tunnel, I'll body block, she is behind me, they can't get to her. So I sit there body blocking and trying to make it work. I suddenly see her manage to dash past me and attack the second incoming ambush. Once she had agro there's nothing to do. Fortunately it has no discernible impact on the TF, but good lord, if you're a doctor and not a fighter, and if you're squishy like Scirroco against Tsoo, then how about behaving as a non fighter and huddling behind a crate?

Did you get the new version from their Discord? The previous official one is majorly borked. So borked it killed auto updates anyway.

Ditch Proton Sweep. You already have Irradiated Ground which will tidy you over until Atom Smasher. As much as we all shit on Devastating Blow the single target becomes mediocre trying not to use it.

Have you tried Stone Armor on a Brute/Tank post tweaks? I haven't done a Shield character but just looking at Mids numbers seem about the same. More DDR by stacking the anti-mez clicky.

You'd have to dig through the Pylon thread and try to find an EM/Bio brute. I get 2:30 on that. Now shave 30 seconds if I also took Gloom. Scrappers do it better but their ATOs are actually useful.

I still find my EM/Fire the best blend. Great ST from EM, AoE assist from Fire Armor, good ST burst from EM for problem targets, good AoE burst from triple procced Burn, sturdy enough to face tank most non psi content. But that's less of a tier list and more of a particular combo.

Which goes to ED levels when slotted for endurance. Consume is one who protects against endurance drain but not recovery debuff. Making Sappers a non consequential joke I see other people talk about immediately targeting while I'm sipping my tea with a pinky extended. But making Super Stunners a pain in the neck.

Sounds like it would be pretty subjective. Nothing is really really bad (KM is weak, but needs so few powers from the primary that we can squeeze in a bunch of other stuff. Psi is weak, but has a lot of CC and can be pretty safe to use. DM isn't super strong, but brings endurance recovery and a tiny heal). Some, of course, are stronger in their specific areas. But if I say 'Elec Melee/Staff is not actually that great AoE' I'll have people blinking owlishly and 'confused' reactions to my post. I'm not even sure a 'clear times tier list' would be accepted since people would still argue.

Playing Savage Melee with Stone Armor is like being surrounded by an upwards waterfall of orange numbers. The bleeds are a DoT, Brimstone makes another DoT, Mudstone another DoT. Now all I need is Degenerative's toxic DoT. So, anyway, duoed Manticore without much of a problem and than asked my friend to wait while I tried my hand against the AVs (the real reason I have been doing it solo these past days since the two AVs are so tanky they can be a roadblock). Savage Melee passed the test. I'm not sure if better or faster than the other contestants, but my worry it would not have the damage was unfounded. There was a... lot of whittling done though. It took around 25 minutes to kill the Countess and to kill Hopkins twice. Only insps used were a couple greens when I feared for my life and did not want a lucky shot when I was already in the yellow. Having no amplifiers Psi was at 36%, S/L at 38% and E/N at 37%. The endurance held pretty well despite having Focused Accuracy on. It was only at the end of those 25 minutes it finally faltered and I toggled out. I relented and detoggled Evasive Maneuvers to finish killing Hopkins for the second time. Funny enough I usually say 'endurance will be fine for normal gameplay but for long fights a Recovery Serum might be needed' but in this case it's the reverse. Fihting non stop and stacking both Blood Frenzy and Unrelenting Fury makes the build a Duracell bunny. There is still Tough and Weave to make the costs heavier but eventually there are the accolades to help counter it. Recovery Serums used so far: still only three in Yin. I've tried changing the slotting some to add three procs to Savage Leap but to be honest I don't notice much difference. The change from just one proc cost me 1.5% S/L and 2.5% E/N so it's not brutal, but, hmm, like I said I don't notice the difference either way. The AoE remains decently good and better the more recharge is slowly added in. A BU + Gaussian, Flurry, Savage Leap, Flurry usually kills all +1 minions. It's not Burn but it's enough to clear a group. All it needs is enough recharge to tighten the ST and use less 185 damage Savage Strike and more of the 487 damage Vicious Slash. I also tried adding Savage Leap to the ST rotation since its more damage than anything else, but the endurance complained right away. The slightly tweaked build. I'm tempted to run Energy Melee next and see how it behaves without Fire Armor backing it up.

On one hand 'dev's time is precious and should be husbanded like a rare resource' on the other 'getting insps from mail should be stopped because 0.1% of the population does that.... when they solo... How dare they...'

Definitely. I'm not against hip swaying since if I put my female character in a slinky lil dress you better gosh darn believe it that hips will be swayed. Just not when dressed to smack bad guys on the face.

You forgot to +5 the recharges in Hasten which puts it at 118 seconds. I would ditch Shadow Punch and take Touch of Fear for more AoE and it doubles as a weak single attack filler until Midnight Grasp is available. You have way too many attacks as it is. You can do a no gap Midnight Grasp, Smite, Siphon, Smite. Repeat. But since you have placed the +res proc in Shadow Punch you need to use shadow Punch, so you can do Siphon, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch. It's going to be weaker than Midnight Grasp though. So I'd make some choices on which attacks to keep and then keep in mind that you want. You can, for example, just place the proc in Siphon since it's a power you -will- be spamming. Just remember not to place it in an AoE power since you don't usually spam those during single target fights. Gloom is strong damage though, and Dark Obliteration is another AoE, but it's sucking a lot of slots you could use for something else like grabbing Evasive Maneuvers to fly faster. Messed with slotting to give more resists to important stuff and a bit more damage, but until you decide on which attacks to keep and use the ball's on your court.

Like, grab an ice-cream, leave it out of the fridge for an hour, and then put it in the microwave!

Alright, I return from testing Savage having reached Yin... and 42 minutes? Wat? That's Rad Melee with -res 'cheating' times (it did it in 40 minutes). That's a Fire Armor/Rad Tanker with Burn (also 40 minutes). I remember a time 40 minutes was the norm for an 8 man team even if nowadays it's more like 30 minutes. The extra recharge from Minerals showed and overall the build really melted everything. Even groups. Of course it is -still- DoT pushing and someone else would just push a button and take a chunk off off an enemy, but, I liked it. I can see how the threshold to stop using two Savage Strike per rotation will tighten the damage what with Vicious slash being the set's 'heavy hitter' and 2.5 seconds recharge making only a 0.2 gap with one Savage Strike and one Maiming Slash as fillers. Also as a bonus only then did I finally use Recovery Serums with three to my name in Yin and that it. It's nothing special because it's just Freaks, but I again tested survival by not using defensive or offensive inspirations (except for Yin where purples were needed due to having the big ambush on top of her debuffing) and even when pulling two groups they couldn't kill my half slotted ass. This is not something Rad Armor and Fire Armor could boast of at the same levels. Blood Thirst is sad with the 2.2 second animation instead of 1.2 and a 33% damage boost instead of 80%, but it adds more damage than is visible to the naked eye. First it lasts for 15 seconds instead of 10, and then it forces all the bleeds to have a 100% chance of happening. This makes a visible difference when three Savage Flurry and two Savage Leaps can be squeezed in that window while hitting mobs.

Though in this particular case Stone Armor -also- provides +perception 😄

Kinda. I remember noticing my endurance problems were alleviated when playing Electric Melee. It may not be the end all of endurance management tools but it does do something.

That said both Elec Melee and Savage Melee are outliers due to their endurance helping inherent.