Sovera

The very first time I took FA I had plans to 'only use it if being debuffed'. Then I realized I didn't have to. It did make things tighter but Consume was there and changing from Musculature 45% to 33% was negligible for damage and had a net positive effect on my endurance lasting long enough for Consume to be back.

Imported the new values (including the recharge and recovery, did not add the toxic) into Mids, and assuming I did not mess up this is what I got: Despite Mids not allowing Rooted with Combat Jumping/Hover it does work in game with an extra 200% regen which leads to 63 HP a second with (over)capped HP thanks to Earth's Embrace in turn leading to this beaut: Obvious weakness: barely any slow resists. Yep. Not sure how to wrangle it but I'm somewhat tempted to let it be and go along with the large heap of defenses and a decent 52% DDR for the debuffs to even hit. Being able to Hover fight away from the auto hit slows like Tar Pits/Caltrops also helps. This is with no Weave, but since I have a free power and no idea what to take I can grab Weave as a one slot wonder to have: E/N resistances remain a weakness though there is room to mess around with the build. The build is not as heavy as it looks at 2.63 even with Weave on since I did not bother to mess with Mids to also lower all the costs of the different powers as per the patch notes, but, even at 2.63 the 4.34 EPS not accounting for three Performance Shifter procs + Panaceia proc plus the hefty recovery -and- endurance debuff resist should be good enough. I took Granite as a panic button, but with the way it turns off every armor and adds all the disadvantages there might be something to be said about not using it. But, it's a one slot wonder that can be detoggled once the panic has ended so it's grabbed. Dual Blades was picked for a few reasons: - I needed minimal power picks because of taking every single power in Stone Armor. - Early AoE - Nimble Slash is not a waste since it does the Empower combo which will be used all the way to 35 (30 if exemped). - Can't take Claws <_< Stone Armor is so forgiving that on top of those absurd numbers it also has Hasten near perma (121.7 seconds) despite having no FF procs slotted. I did hum and awh at not slotting a FF proc somewhere but to be honest Earth's Embrace and Hasten are the only clickies in the build. The equally absurd recharge levels allows for the fabled Blinding Feint, Ablating Strike, Sweeping Strike, Ablating Strike. Despite having slotted a damage proc in Ablative Strike and Sweeping Strike this is the one time I would probably go for the -res procs. I considered Ice Melee but it's a defensive set which does not seem needed. I also considered Dark Melee for the obvious reasons, but again, strictly speaking other than the heal? Rad Melee is probably the best choice for those of you who can stomach the animations. I'm not quite sure what Incarnates to pick. But I would probably still go for Barrier as a panic button or to protect my squishes. Without having an altered Mids trying to import the build might not work, or might mess with the slotting, so I'll add a screenshot to the build to have an idea of what sets went where. The empty slot in Blinding Feint is for Gaussian. I juat don't slot it to not inflate my numbers in Mids.

I usually do it in four ways: - I need nothing or have no more slots to spare: one +5 endurance reduction. - I need S/L defenses: two Rectified Reticules and one +5 endurance. - I have the spare slots and want to bolster E/N resistances: three Adjusted Targeting. - I have the spare slots and want to bolster EN and also S/L: six Adjusted Targeting. The main reason I take Focused Accuracy is not for the accuracy boost (though it does help with the slotting, but it's not the main reason) is the resistance to being debuffed. Having 'more' tohit or even carrying yellows is of no particular use when we are being debuffed since those tend to be auto hit and in gross quantities. If you are just taking it for the accuracy you can take Tactics which is a lot easier on the endurance. And if you don't know if you need more accuracy what you need to do is go to Options, Configuration, Math&Exemplaring, then change the ToHit to 48. This will make Mids show the accuracy when you are fighting +3 which is where you'll be once you have a T3 Alpha slotted. Now the accuracy of the attacks will be realistic.

It may be anedoctical but a TF being ran at +1 and with mobs always at minimum +1, the one time I was not present in the zone when someone entered first they were back to +0. This is the difficulty bug we've always had but had been tried to be fixed in the last patch.

I was messing with Spines/Stone Brute after having altered Mids to have the new defensive values (didn't bother adding the extras like recharge, less endurance costs and added recovery) and realized it can be made pretty darn tough. There is always an E/N weakness, but E/N defense is softcapped and there's a decent DDR (and always Granite to fall back on). One thing I realized is that without Granite it's pretty hard to cap all resistances. Even on a Brute I couldn't get past an average of 50% ish across the board. On the other hand I had softcapped defenses across the board, even psi. So the.. uh.. set about being a big rock is all about deflecting damage, I guess? But it's on Shield's level pretty much. Lots of defense and fat resistances and a damage aid like Shield has. Shield has more DDR though and some people like the teleport attack, but it's definitely one of the better sets atm with the high defenses, strong resists, a heal, built in recovery, and a damage boost which are things Shield lacks. Tankers with the numbers and the ATO might turn graniteless into a beasts with DDR, softcapped defense AND 90% to most.

I have to say so far I'm not, like, hyper impressed. Not having Burn since level 18 diminishes the impact of a Brute's superior damage. But the EM/Fire literally has no downsides. Strong ST? Yes. Good AoE? Yes. It just does not exemplar down to Posi 1 without a second thought but that's not exactly a common endeavor anyway. But I was mentioning to a friend how my Brutes felt a lot more squishy in Synapse and after some thinking I decided that, yeah, of course. Dropping a Burn and killing half the spawn is half the damage not coming in. So of course. Granted that at Yin Burn is already in and then it's driven by a Brute's damage and it slathers napalm over anything that moves. I was playing with a Tanker friend and I'd sneak up behind them and see their patient whittling of a spawn. Then I'd drop Burn and kill all the mobs surrounding them 😄

Devs of old: So new players, barely any slots, not even access to SOs. We should make it easy on them considering Posi is the intro to TFs. Jack Emmert: First of all, you're fired. The rest of you design low level CoT and Vhaz, go!

Not to tell you how to play the game, but the general advice of playing instead of aiming to be 50 and start farming still holds well. As a new player you can probably make use of the signature in my link for the basics in money making that will shore you up until 50, it includes the location of the P2W vendor that will have really good stuff. Including buffs that will help your endurance for cheap (Recovery Serums and Amplifiers, but Amplifiers only buy at level 1 since they go expensive super fast after level 1. The guide explains much of it). Once you discover the P2W vendor and that it has a double XP buff you'll realize that you level very fast so should not feel beholden on a character. It's common to just play the game and be level 20+ in a single game session. So if you're not liking a character just make a new one. I am a big fan of the Fire Armor/Ice Melee and recommend it to all new players due to the blend of sturdyness, low level biggo damage, and low level access to a heal and endurance clicky.

I feel my own disconnect when you say you're good at builds and the game but have ten million spread on ten characters, and don't slot the cheap stuff because too expensive. You need to make up your mind. While others have chipped in already I'll say to look at my signature. It's not the best way, it's not the fastest way, but I just play the game and make money. - Don't do radio missions. They are hilariously obsolete. Run flashbacks from Ouroboros. You get the same XP but at the end of the arc you get merits. Or do like I do and do taskforces. They can be soloed at your leisure, or they can be done with a team to blitz though. Each one for 30-50 minutes nets a ton of XP and an average of 20+ million in converters. Radio missions only give drops and XP, same thing that arcs or taskforces, but no merits. - Just in case you decide not to check the signature I'll quickly say that on average a converter will sell for 75k. One merit is three converters. So math it out if you would rather sell 300 converters or buy an ATM recipe (as a rule, no, never, there is near always a deficit of 2-4 million in buying a recipe for 100 merits). This is the most brain dead way of making money. People who care about the market would make a lot more money by -using- the converters instead of selling them raw. - Spend money and buy IOs. As per the guide I'll repeat: nothing is wasted, nothing is soulbound. Buy the expensive stuff because you can transfer it to another character or even sell it back again. Things like the 3% defense uniques may be expensive but they bump defenses significantly when trying to reach the cap. When I stop playing a character and start another I will use /respec and transfer the IOs (I feel no need to have characters fully slotted out if I'm not playing them). This is how I slowly made money since I stopped spending to kit out every single alt that I make. When we have 200-600 million in IOs on a character and a respec recipe costs 1-2 million it seems obvious to me that I would rather spend ten minutes respeccing a character and recover those 200-600 million worth of IOs. - Seriously, buy IOs. Some things like the full Obliteration set costs about two million a piece and will bump recharge, S/L resists, S/L defenses, accuracy and other minor stuff. My own advice to solo the whole game on a budget: Fire Armor/Ice melee. Straight out of the box it chews through everything with near impunity. It is linked in the signature. Ivan is one of those who believes in keeping their builds 'secret' so none can copy their amazeballs slotting. 🙂

Did a few more builds. Dual Blades/Fire was actually good fun in the early levels. Dropping down to 5% chance of failing the combo was good. The speedy Empower combo carried the build from Posi 1 to Synapse and even in the low levels the rotation was forgiving with Lotus Drops followed by Vengeful Slice making a neat loop. Once I got to Yin and started the Attack Vitals my interest waned. That 2.7 Vengeful Slice really killed the flow that had been speedy and flashy once it became part of the attack chain. The combo on a Brute did not get to shine with the Blinding Feint +damage mechanic falling flat due to how those buffs work out on Brutes and that didn't help either. A combo without Burn and on a Scrapper/Tanker would probably shine better. Next I tried a Kinetic Melee/Fire. It was alright in the low levels with Fury helping boost the very low damage of the first three attacks. Burst helped with the FF proc fitting in nicely, but it fell off pretty quick and even with Fury it was an exercise in frustration to tap those keys and do such anemic damage. Ultimately it ends being a FF vehicle to throw more Burns. The last one actually surprised me: Spines/Fire. I only had time to solo Posi 1 and 2 but it behaved pretty well. Of course it is too soon to say anything since Fury in these low levels just impels any Brute build forward. That said not only did it went fast (35 minutes for Posi 1, 45 minutes for Posi 2, both ran at +0x6) but I was surprised at how easily things went with neither having a single death. To put in perspective my Rad/Fire got trounced at the ambush on the final mission and had a couple deaths in Posi 2 when getting the internal bombs where CoT lay a lot of CoT bullshit. 45 minutes is also a good ten minutes shorter than my usual when soloing Posi 2. This build was pretty complicated to fit everything in and in the end I'm short two slots to be happy: one for the last recovery unique in Health and a damage proc for Barb Swipe. With ST being a problem for Spines even a low chance of a damage proc is nothing something I like removing, but, no more slots. The build is also -super- heavy and I really don't like not having that last recovery unique. I'm talking 1 net EPS. At first glance this does not appear sustainable and Cardiac might be needed. I'll see how it goes though since Recovery Serums might be enough between Consumes. If I keep tweaking I might find the slots. I decided to ignore Impale's long animation to use Ripper instead: damage is comparable (407 Ripper VS 406 Impale and Impale having no good bonuses for the build in the available sets) , Ripper animates faster, and the coup de grace was that it can slot a FF proc to push for more Burns. Not gonna lie that Impale feels a bit like a newbie trap for the unaware since in the time it takes to animate Barb Swipe and Lunge can be used for more damage and a soupçon of more animation time. ST is still not going to be stellar just looking at the damage of each attack, but the double damage aura helps the whittling and Burn is the heavy attack that Spines lacks. For leveling a Barb Swipe, Lunge, Barb Swipe, inherent attack (in my case Mutagen) was super forgiving and I always had something to press. Double damage auras lets me ignore minions and focus on the bosses. Irradiated Ground it ain't, but Quills does do something once combined with Blazing Aura (neither alone does appreciable damage). I predict this will fall off in a few levels but the progression is good: low levels Fury pushes the build, medium levels Burn shows up to prop the failing damage. +4 content is where things will probably drop into whittling enemies down.

Searched the thread (didn't read 38 pages, just used the search) and saw no mention of this: When we fight the last boss(es) of Positron part 1. Should be Simulacrum.

I'm actually tempted by the pairing of Stone and Spines. Mud pots' -40% movement + all the -movement and -recharge of Spines sounds fun. Brimstone looks like a mini Offense Adaptation to help a bit, and of course if things go sour pop Granite until the sourness has gone. No Burn though? UGH! It's back to the 'but if I survive fine while going all out on offense then why add more defense?'.

You understand if we all say EA is one of the best it might be you who need to re-evaluate things, right? Softcap reached with 27 slots and 7 powers to spare. Energy Drain not used but able to add another 4% with 5 enemies in range. Plenty of room to go ham on recharge or proc heavy, or even keep on shoring the negative resists weakness. SR does more but demands the near entirety of the set to be picked and offers no heal or endurance recovery.

Much appreciated, Lumi of the one good nipple. This seems the sort of thing important enough to warrant updating the description of.

Do we still need to be 'grounded' for the bonuses? The description says yes, but a random people on the forums said no.

Brutes still do a substantial amount of damage compared to Tankers but it depends on sets. My tests on an Ice Melee invariably had a tanker at 4:20. A Brute made it in 3:20. A whole minute is big. But comparing Energy Melee and the Brute was only 30 seconds ahead. There's also a point of view that the Tanker's wider radius is mostly useless out of agro saturation (which only happens in farms). There is a physical limit on how many mobs can cluster around us, but the first AoEs even solo kill the minions and that space is cleared. The Trapdoor test is a better test of gameplay but it needs mirrored builds. All Brute times in that thread are abysmal (7 minutes and up) where most Scrapper are 4 minutes and up. My own Fire/Martial Arts Tanker consistent 6 minutes. I would need to do a MA/Fire Brute to test and I suppose that I could on the test server but I am not sufficiently invested unless pressured into it. Perfectly mirrored builds would no doubt give the advantage to Brutes. But there are so many sacrifices to amp a Brute's defenses. I most times end up with attacks that don't even have damage procs. All of that narrows the damage cap.

One small tip is about not using Experienced as a new character in a DFB. DFB eats the XP and I miss being able to run one once and move to Posi 1. As it is I run one once and always end level 7, sometimes even 6. Which means a second DFB or a quick hop to the AE to get one quick level. Testing the use of Experienced did not change this and I was unable to reach level with a DFB. It's just hard coded for diminishing returns.

I'm not sure if you are serious, but I'm going out on a limb that you must have been fighting something that debuffed accuracy if you were missing that badly. Tsoo with their Hurricanes or CoT ghosties or whatever. Sentinels have their problems but accuracy isn't one of them.

I've mentioned both AVs and pylons.

You're thinking of Offensive Opportunity, the Sentinel mechanic. Offense Adaptation is the Bio toggle.

...what do you mean? It's a constant damage boost and a 100% toxic damage proc on all attacks. Brimstone is the one that is 'unreliable' since it has a chance to not do damage, or do one tick of damage, or do two ticks, or do three ticks.

Unironically while leveling is probably the best use for it. +0 or +1 get the near full brunt of it. There have been the pros and the cons discussed in this thread. I prefer doing the damage now instead of relying on my next hit though as the map clearing testing showed it made no difference. That's also due to the last hit scenario. If a mob has 100 HP and we need to hit twice for 50 to kill it, then it makes no difference if a damage proc hit for 20, we still need to hit it a second time. This is less noticeable with mobs that have more HP where the added 20 might shave one less hit. But since a spawn is composed of 50% minions we rely on big HP bags to really show results. That's why we do certain improvements like -res procs or proc monsters, and then we test and see 30 second improvements and call it pretty good, but it took 2-3 minutes of hitting something to shave those 30 seconds off. Big damage characters like Blasters, Scrappers and Brutes don't notice procs as much because of the last hit scenario. When they kill something in 1-2 hits procs don't add much. Lower damage ATs like Controllers and Defenders love procs since they might need 3-4 hits to kill something and that gives time for one or two procs to activate and maybe shave a hit. They notice only having to hit something 2-3 times. This is not backed by math but it's an observation on how I see the game after playing it for a few years now.

That seems very reasonable. It may not be Burn but it's closer to Offensive Adaptation, give or take a few %.

I know Boops, I was following that thread as well. But the equation didn't tell me enough. Now I know it's around 7 to 15 damage repeated through one or three times per attack (or none). Kinda ish a second damage aura but not really since an aura hits everyone.

Thank you kindly for the time. So a kind of second damage aura-ish in terms of damage. Don't see it really making or breaking a build - Burn it ain't - but certainly nice as an added damage. Pity the devs did not listen to the request of swapping Brimstone to a level lower. Now I'm pondering Rad Melee and Stone for triple damage aura effect.