Sovera

Reactive doesn't do much either on normal enemies. The DoT is what actually makes the difference, but not a large one. Degenerative 75% chance for DoT closes the gap a bit but still works on AVs/pylons/GMs where Reactive falls flat. It's not a huge difference either way though.

It doesn't. I've done ITFs in full teams since and everything melts the same.

Might still get better results with Degenerative too.

This sums up my point of view. We have too many tales of 'haha, my tank just puled X enemies and laughed'. Well, yes, it's a tank? It is what they do. ITF and romans are nice and good, but lets talk about something a bit more problematic to tank. How about soloing some Shepherds from First Ward? They mulched my Fire Tank by -res (and no resistances resist resistance debuffs helped), -defense, and I think -accuracy but don't quote me. It might have been slows. Regardless between -res AND -def a single +1x8 would kill my tank np. What about Banished Pantheon, but not the watered down version we get from DA since all the incarnate boosts turn them into +1.

Put hover on for the extra bit of defense, then, if you are not and old like SOME people I shall not name, manually approach what you wish to kill.

I'll say it again, Fire armor/Ice melee. By level 20 you're melting whole groups and it does not need a ton of IOs to be safe because you get Ice Patch. Once you get Burn you'll be addicted. Check my signature for builds.

You need to click the lil buttons so that they are green. All da little buttons, unless you don't want them, for example Build-up so it does not skew your accuracy maths. I'd still suggest just copying a build instead of making one. If you're super new it's best to use a build. For example, if you take Weave you don't need to do that particular slotting for Contaminated Strike and Radiation Siphon. I did some tweaking. Doesn't mean it's better, it's just different. Resistances don't need to be at 90% because the Tanker proc in Radioactive Smash will put the resistances to 89% with a second stack (and the Scaling Resists unique in Battle Agility gives +1% resistances when at 90% or lower HP).

In teams you're not going to notice Bio's squish.

Werner sings the praises of Shield for damage but the buffing aura is something I didn't notice at all. Shield Charge at least is a semi demi mini nuke. I should have paid more attention to the damage buff when plunging into the middle of a group, but just hitting things with and without it didn't seem to have much of an impact in killing speed.

You got 5k slots. DO IT ALL!

I knows, I've done all of those when soloing the ITF twice. Once normal and once with all the modifiers. But doing the ambush on purpose is the point. Can we really call it the ITF and soloing it without that ocean of seafood at the top?

I can try running it and see what time I get. Definitely will need either some tweaks or my Lore to distract the ambush since I tried to solo the ITF on normal mode and almost could do it but in the end I got slowed to a crawl and not even Barrier and Ice Patch was enough. I have another build with 65% -recharge though. That ambush atop the hill is just too much with 20+ bosses who all do -recharge and -defense.

I got bored with it. It's going to work but Ripper's slowness was sapping my will to live since I kept comparing it with Frost who did the same but with more range. Once we remove Spine Burst and Impale is it really a Spines build though? 😄 Both are bad enough I'd still not include them though, at least for my own consumption, but the build works being dragged forward by Fire Armor. Check the first post for my top picks in Fire Armor, but plenty works like Fire/Katana if you want to go angelic fiery sword.

Right. Everyone suggesting their favorites so guess which one I'm going to suggest?? Fire Armor! Surpriseeeee! No seriously, if a fire armor can solo the ITF on +4x8 with enemies buffed then then it's fine as 'tough enough'. Go Fire Armor/Ice Melee and you're good to tank the whole while feeling good about your damage.

You're gaining close to 20% resistances from the ATO which is pretty brutal since it goes across the board. Minor nitpick because I agree with everything else. My one play with a Widow crashed at my first Hami when the same blasts that my Tanker shrugs off nearly one shot her. A bit like Shield where I start pondering combos and then see I end up shoehorning myself into DM to get health/endurance.

I'm just going to snip the rest because it's much shorter than what you've said. What would happen? Nothing. Nothing would happen. How did people farm before the AE? They picked a mission and would run it over and over. The infamous Dreck comes to mind. Nowadays there are no hoops to be jumped. The first mission of the Market Crash 100% looks like a regular farm mission from the AE but at 100% the XP. It may not be as OPTIMAL as patrolling mobs who come to meet at the center but it's a gazillion Freaks to be reaped, The only way to calm down the anti farming crowd (incidentally I haven't received an answer about how inflation did not balloon prices, and neither about how it takes casual play two weeks TOPS to buy all the purples and winters, and half that if a bit more aggressive about playing which seems about right if actively playing a character we are enjoying) would be to instate a GW2 diminishing returns. And it's universally loathed in GW2. GW2 is a game with a lot of grind and hours killing things, so it's HILARIOUS to find the drops slowing and eventually stopping if having farmed a map for more than an hour. The game about grind with an anti-grind mechanic is stupid as can be. Before anyone sneers I don't farm. I've long since stated this. I don't farm, I don't even bother playing the market other than crafting the recipes I happen to find for a % more profit than if I sold the recipe. I just play the game, do TFs, do a daily Tinpex/Hami (have actually not done this in a long while other than Tinpex for my most recent character I am incarnating). What I do and some don't is clean an alt I stop playing to gear another alt. Even so I have something like a billion, 4-5 characters fully IOed to the gills with all the expensive stuff, plus a dozen packed enhancement tables. So I have no sides that I am picking. BUT! It annoys me to see all this sneering going on. PROOF, FFS! PRODUCE IT! 'OMG FARMING IS KILLING THE ECONOMY!!!' 'No it's not, things were more expensive before. They are -less- expensive now.' 'IT IS!!!!' '...do you have proof of this?' 'NO, BUT IT IS!' GTFO.

If the doom saying was as real as being reported in this thread the amounts of inf created out of thin air would have balooned the price of things for purples to be 50 mill because, so much inf around, demand, big bids being made to ensure farmers got their goods. Empirical means say this is otherwise. So now we need more of a proof that the small segment of the population that farm requires pitchforks and torches.

It was 😄 But yeah, it's a near hidden mechanic. In a full team in particular, but a good tidbit for soloers. Also a great little mechanic to add regardless.

I think it is the shouting that makes them more resistant to KB effects. My Ice Patch sometimes works and sometimes not. Most often not. I suppose yelling does make the ground less slippery or something.

As someone who soloed Posi 1 and 2 at (nearly) level appropriate Vhaz really are tough. But the fact I soloed them at x6 or x8 at level appropriate (AKA slot starved and without all the goodies in place) also says it can be done. But inspirations can be the secret sauce. No, as bad as Vhaz can sometimes be (KILL THE GREEN EYE LASERING EIDOLON!!!!!) it's low level CoT that are a complete nightmare.... but again, having soloed Posi 1 and 2 it is also doable. Still nightmare though. -ToHit ON TOP of the deflection bubble on top of -def, sometimes all applied in AoE -and- auto-hit because why not

Snipe won't be up enough to be used in a regular chain. Either take Shadow Punch instead and have a fast Siphon Life , Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch, or take Midnight Grasp for a slower but stronger Midnight Grasp, Smite, Siphon Life, Smite. Burn is strong enough to be used as a ST attack as well so I moved the purple damage proc there instead of Shadow Maul. Burn has a very good synergy with damage procs due to under the hood mechanics so a minimum of two damage procs there and more if recharge/damage can be kept up. This isn't perfect yet but tweak things a bit more to reach 70% to S/L and you can trust Barrier to give you the last 5%. Fire Armor is squishy so you're going to want Barrier anyway, so you might as well play to its strengths AKA permanent 5% to defense and resistances, ergo building defense to 40% only. For most of the time you will have no need for Barrier as you melt things, but when you're in trouble you can lean on it and Shadow Meld for the last minute before Barrier is back up. As a last note you might get more bang for your buck with a Brute since they will keep mobs close. The second you drop Burn mobs high tail it and even if you don't they will -still- high tail it when their HP drops to 20%-ish. Benny Hill themesong in the background. This won't happen with a Brute/Tanker.

Farming is fine. People who like farming are fine. There is no gross inflation as some people are talking about. Purples used to cost 22-25 million and are down to 15-17 mill. ATOs have always cost 8-10 mill and haven't budged, winter IOs used to go as high as 40 mill and nowadays are 20-22. LotGs used to be a solid 7 mill and nowadays are a solid 5-6 mill. Yes, farming gives more, but does it matter as long as we have enough? Well, does it? I have a 'start with no inf transfers, no IOs' challenge documented in the Brunker thread and though it was not pleasant having no money at all and scramble for everything I still finished the first day with 83 million just by leveling via TFs which already bough most of the basic and expensive IOs. Tell me that in one week I wouldn't have the character fully kitted in purples and winter IOs?

Some small changes. You were focusing a bit too much on fire/cold defense and resistance which isn't terribly important. Energy was a bit too low which is more important. You also didn't add a Force Feedback proc in Thunderstrike which is useful considering Hasten was not taken. The Theft of Essence in Dark Regen will be a game changer as well. The tanker ATO proc will work much better in a single target attack too. It's late so I'm stopping here despite the build still being a mess but you might get some ideas. I would personally lower defense to 40%, then lower resistances to around 78% with one stack of the ATO and then rely on Barrier for the last 5%. Coupled with two stacks of the ATO you would get all resistances that were at 78% to end at 90%. It's gimmicky and relies on incarnates but allows to play with the slotting instead of pushing to 90% as you have which then wastes further ATO procs. For endurance I would -probably- take Cardiac, but possibly just live off Recovery Serums since they are cheap and for regular play with multiple opponents the Theft of Essence proc can almost work like a ghetto endurance recovery clicky.

What did they fix? I know I did one this morning and the whiffing was pretty noticeable.

In my random quest to lower endurance costs I have tinkered a slightly different version of the Fire/Ice. Near the same but dropping out of the Leadership pool. Defense remains the same thanks to picking up Combat Jumping. The loss of Assault does not please me since I'm pushing for more damage but if Mids can be trusted and despite Assault stating it is a 15% damage boost it actually can be as little as 3.86% (Freezing Touch), or 4.7% (Ice Sword), or 4.6% (Burn) or 5.1% (Frost). When chasing damage 3-5% sed 3-5% but replacing it for Temperature Control does free a slot (don't level without -KB though, just place it there once doing the level 50 respec. It will still work when exemplared), adds more cold resistance (negligible considering since cold isn't predominant) and a hefty 20% slow resistance which the build was lacking (goes up to 65%). The only other consideration is that Maneuvers and Assault are team wide buffs though it can be argued that giving everyone 3.46% defense and about 5% damage isn't going to save anyone or shave much time killing things (that said if everyone in the team had Maneuvers it would be 27% defense and 40% damage). The combo of losing Assault and replacing Maneuvers for the near cost free Combat Jump lowers the end consumption from 2.07 to 1.60.