Sovera

Decimation (without the proc) is my goto as well. Just like the sheep from the moon said I too tend to keep that set even once at 50 since it is chock-full of good bonuses.

Alright, fixed. This time with Offensive toggled on (good catch). Chromium 3.0 [Brute] (Stone Melee - Bio Armor).mbd

Ugh, you're correct that I forgot about Offensive shaving 7.5% off. BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD!

Hello friendo. The build as is will carry you in the end game so no need to change if you're pleased with it. That said there are some improvements if you care to make them. - F/C defence isn't as important as having E/N up. There is a crapola more E/N out there than F/C. S/L defences are a struggle (but can be done) but not nearly as important as Erratic pointed out. Bio has strong S/L resistances so not having S/L defences is not as important. Now E/N (and F/C) have weak resistances and thus need the defences. - The S/L resistances past 90% is something that can be slightly min maxed as more than 90% is of no use which could allow slots to be placed somewhere else. - So, one thing I've noticed is that you skipped Seismic Smash. It's your biggest, strongest attack of the set AND it will CC a boss in one hit thanks to have a maf 4 Hold AND because it has a hold you can slot the purple damage proc from the Hold set. I don't really want to mess with your power choices since you picked them for a reason, but I would sacrifice Parasitic Aura. Tbh anything Parasitic Aura does can be replaced by an inspiration of two, IMO. Unfortunately you still want Stone Fist and both Mallets to complete your ST rotation so if you want to skip Seismic smash you will STILL have a complete ST rotation, but you'll be skipping on (don't forget to set your Fury to 85 for a better idea of what your damage is). - Tremor is a great place to have a Force Feedback proc and I would advise to go for it. - Maneuvers is way overslotted, and you missed an opportunity to save a slot by placing the unique 5% Shield Wall in one of the places you already had slotted Shield Walls. - You pushed hard on S/L defences but at the same time not hard enough. Reaching 40% at least would have allowed to softcap with the help of 2 minute Barrier. - Build-up could do with a second recharge slot and a Gaussian even if Brutes dilute the use of BU and Gaussian. So with all that in mind this is what I'd pick (replace Seismic back for Parasitic if you feel its lack): Chromium 3.0 [Brute] (Stone Melee - Bio Armor).mbd Stuff is at 40% across the board so that the 5% (at minimum) of Barrier will finish softcapping. S/L is also at 85% expecting Barrier to finish pushing it to 90%. I can't emphasise how little this should be a thing you must do on cooldown. Only content hard enough to warrant the use of Barrier will warrant those last 5%, but if you get there then the panic button that is Barrier extends for the next two minutes. What I would do if it was my build: - Lower S/L defences to 33%. S/L still has value so I'd not completely skip on it but at 33% you can gobble a small purple to be at 45%. This should just be a once in a while thing and not something that needs to be done the second the small purple drops off. You soak a LOT of S/L punishment thanks to the resistances but some E/N attacks will have their S/L component so if taking a beating then eating a small purple will help deflecting those. - No need to faff around with Barrier. S/L res is at 90%, S/L defenses are at 33 and a small purple will softcap if it needs, E/N is softcapped. Barrier is relegated to a pure panic button which will be even less needed since less 5% S/L and E/N damage is slipping through. Chromium 3.0 [Brute] (Stone Melee - Bio Armor).mbd Both are valid so pick what you'd like or if nothing else some ideas on how to slot things.

The ATO2 does not proc for the skill it is in, only on the next attacks. It depends if you meant that to say as wishing to improve your other skills which should work since it's a 3.5 duration proc thus 1.9 for HM + 1 for Stone Fist makes 2.9 so Stone Mallet still fits in the proc. But I seem to think you meant that as giving the 50% chance to Seismic Smash itself (I could be wrong) which would not happen.

Simplest way to check is see how long Hasten still has when its icon disappears. If it disappears, at, say, 15 seconds left on the recharge, then try again but this time non-stop fighting a pylon and see how much is shaved from those 15 seconds by the time it disappears again.

*stares* *has the vapours*

Built this and it looks nice enough to post in case someone might be interested. It's not a max damage build as it goes towards being tanky and lazy. Like me (just the lazy part). ST rotation is Heavy Stone Mallet (fish for the 50% crit proc), Seismic Smash, Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Stone Fist, repeat. It might make more sense to start with Seismic Smash, then Heavy Mallet as that would feed the crit chance proc to Stone Fistx2 and Stone Mallet as Seismic Smash already hits the hardest and those two skills are the weakest so having an increased crit chance might make them feel more useful to press. I lean towards making the weaker skills more interesting to press but a fat Seismic Smash crit will feel more satisfying. For AoE it will be Heavy Mallet (fish for the 50%), Seismic Smash, Tremor, repeat. Tremor gives Tanker level wide AoE but in return hits like a wet noodle (slightly above Stone Fist). But it does great CC with KD and can take a FF proc which in turn makes it a 3.5 second recharge when the FF proc is up. Without it it'll have a small gap as both combined take 3.6 and the FFless recharge is 4.6. Scrapper (Stone Melee - Energy Armor).mbd Not a leveling build but one can be whipped up if needed.

I think I posted one of these a while back but I've tightened it up a bit. It's not a max damage build as it's built to be gird loins and spank. ST rotation is Cleave, Swoop, Gash and Chop, per usual, but now with both spicy -res procs. Recharge ends neatly at 4.5 which is when Cleave has finished recharging. AoE rotation is just Cleave (fish for the 50% crit proc), Axe Cyclone and Pendulum with a 0.5 gap. Or none if the Force Feedback procs which in AoE situations should be a regular, but who will notice 0.5 gaps either way, eh? The FF procs are more to speed up the build than to fix rotation gaps. Scrapper (Battle Axe - Energy Aura).mbd Obviously not a leveling build but not too hard to swap to a leveling build if someone requires it.

That majority of the attacks still have a S/L component. What changed 'recently' was that some of the attacks of some of the mobs of some factions had the S/L component removed from E/N attacks. This was done to curb the S/L defense meta, but it was not a sweeping change. The patch note when it happened went over which mobs had this changed in each faction. As for capped resistances and softcapped defense let me present you my Fire/Martial Arts 😄 Affectionately called the Turtle because of that.

I've tried taking it and using it but it was so bad I preferred to take Contaminated Strike and ST the mobs until my actual AoE opened up.

I haven't played 'seriously' in a while but for a good two years this was my go to game. Now, every server has their own community, but Everlasting was always good so take that in mind when someone says they've had a good or a bad time. The suggestion subforum is a cesspool of well meant white knights that want to defend the poor devs from extra work. Any suggestion these players disagree based on whatever whim dictates it is met with a firm no. Which is completely hilarious if we consider that: A) The suggestion was not addressed to them but rather to the devs, so why are they even chiming in? If they are devs then it's valid, sure. But an internet rando saying no because it's too much work? Lol? B) Their opinion isn't worth the pixels it is printed on. If the devs decide to implement it it will be implemented and that's it.

You don't need to take all your attack powers. As a rule your strongest powers are the ones taken later. Colloquially they are referred by tiers with the first attack called tier 1 (or T1) and the last being the tier 9 (or T9). Your strongest attacks are usually the last ones. This is not 100% true for all sets so don't shy away from asking regarding certain combos. For ranged characters their T9 is also known as their nuke. That's the thing they will initiate combat with and is frankly of the most important since it will burst a group of mobs. But for the most part what you want is Mids, the program we use for builds, and then look at the recharge of the attacks. I'm sure you've noticed that your huge bar of attack has constantly powers that are already recharged and not being used because you just can't press them all. Narrow these to: - Powers you like. They just look cool and that's valid. That power from Radiation Blast that does the Star Wars pew pew sound? Yes please. - Powers that are useful. Build-up for example (never skip, take early, slot early, it's your opener), but powers that give a breather by knocking enemies away. - Enough attacks that when you hit your last one the first has finished recharging. Any more than these are not needed. This will change as you level so it is fine to take one or two attacks more while leveling but as slots open and more recharge is slotting the need for extra attacks goes down. I would usually recommend always taking the T1 as it is what recharges the fastest and it's easy to slip it in between each of the stronger attacks. Later on it can be ignored or just turned into a mule. The last one in particular will fluctuate a lot depending on how you slot your powers. Having a metric load of cash will allow to slot fancy IOs early which in turn will allow to not take a lot of powers in order to not have big gaps waiting for powers to finish recharging. But if playing with basic vendor bought gear then that does not happen and the progression will be slower and the need for extra attacks will remain. There is no easy answer as this will depend on what AT and which power sets you've picked in that AT. As a quick example with all min maxed expensive builds pretty much all have only three single target attacks with very tight requirements to avoid picking a fourth attack. But then there will be AoE attacks which depend on the attack set. Some will have one AoE, some will have two. Then Build-up. So around 5-6 powers will be taken from the attack set. There are exceptions to this such as Axe that has such awkward recharge times that a fourth attack is required, and Ice Melee which has no good third single-target attack so I use Frost, it's cone AoE, in the single-target chain giving the set excellent cleave which ends saving one power pick. For the secondary sets it is harder to answer because it depends on the set. A buffer AT will want its buffs, but a Blaster will pick which of their melee attacks they feel comfortable going into melee to use. A meleer will take their armor toggles, always, but some passives are not worth picking or be avoided (Stone Armor's Granite form for example). There are way too many possible permutations to go through each one. As a rule it is much easier to cobble something together in Mids, post it on the forums, ask for opinions, and then, important, decide whether you want to take those opinions. Some opinions will be all min maxed and suck the joy out of playing the set that you were having. Eff that. But say it and someone is bound to give a helping hand. You can learn what was done and most of the times the builds themselves can be used as templates to try different combos and trying to replicate the slotting.

Making a build IS an art form. Some will build tanky like I do and sacrifice damage despite the game not being that hard. Others will go full on damage and rely on short buffs. Saying HOW to build is harder than it sounds because it involves playing with IO bonuses and making a tetris that hits all the sweetspots. With hundreds of bonuses this is not something we can just say do X and Z. To be fair what you're saying of 'just learn, n00b' is how I learned. I started builds (very crappy ones) posted them on the forums (and I cringe looking at them now). I saw how others did it, got my tips from their slotting, improved how I slotted. But when you ask 'how do I reach my defense softcaps' it's like you expect some magic formula. There is no such thing. Different ATs have, by themselves, 236 combinations (I looked at the math for Brutes recently, and yes, we can have 236 variations of a Brute not including regular and epic pools which catapults it further). Of those 236 possible variations some will reach the caps in one way and others in another. In these permutations we then also add how some people will be fine with spending 700 million in a build and others want to spend 200 million tops. If you want to take this as an apathetic community that does not care then okay, sure, go for it. But if you were to tell me 'I have and X/X and I'd like to build tanky' I could say how to achieve this. You'd get bonus points for having tried it first and posted the build with the powers you like and want so we can work around it. If you then have questions I can try to answer them too. But since you're talking goals here's some: - Defence is, IMO, king, since a lot of attacks carry debuffs in them. If we avoid the attacks we avoid the debuffs. Defence comes in two flavours: typed (smash/lethal, fire/cold, etc) and positional (melee, ranged, AoE). These do not intersect or stack so pick one. Which one do you pick? The one your AT is aimed for. For example Stone Armor is typed defense so obviously aim for it. But Ninjutsu is positional, so it's positional you want. Goals: 45% of either. If going into incarnate territory this goes up to 59% (I don't personally bother building for incarnate but it's a me thing). Most ranged ATs have zero defenses or resistances natively with the exception of Sentinel who has armor toggles in their secondary. So trying to build a ranged character who reaches 45% to everything is just near impossible. In this case as a rule of thumb what will be aimed for is just Ranged defense since as a ranged character the enemies will be hitting back from range. This is also a reason why ranged characters will be advised to take Hover and Fly in order to be floating out of melee ranged making their Ranged defense shine. This is not the only way to do it though. A Blaster can ignore defense and just start a fight doing so much damage that they obliterate a spawn in the first seconds, but this is not as easy as it sounds if wishing to increase the difficulty. Resistance based sets will go up to 90%. They will usually have a heal to recoup those 10% being lost since EVERY attack lands. There is no fancy 'positional' here as resistances apply to a certain damage type. These types are always paired though, so IO bonuses will give, for example, smash/lethal resistance instead of just smash or just lethal. While certain ATs like Brutes or Tankers have natively a 90% cap to all it is very hard, if not impossible, to grab a defense set and pump up the resistances as well. If the armor picked is defence then focus on getting to the defence cap, and if the armor is resistance then try to get it to 90%. Tankers have it good since their special AT IO gives them at least 13% via its proc allowing to, at least, aim for 77% instead of 90% as the last 13% come from the ATO proc. Then, if there is slotting and depending on how much you're willing to sacrifice you can use the leftover slots to increase resistances. This is the moment where recharge is sacrificed. Recharge is important if having a lot of important cooldowns. Some sets live and die by their cooldowns (for example Bio Armor that relies on three cooldowns to stay alive) and others don't really care much (for example Super Reflexes or Stone Armor that have no defensive cooldowns). But when it comes to attacks having lots of recharge allows to only use the strong attacks as well as making Build-up come back sooner. Build-up is an important tool (more for solo tbh) as it gives a substantial 80% damage boost for 10 seconds. With a Gaussian proc in it that is increased to 160% for 5 seconds, then 80% for the remainder five. Especially during solo those initial 160% are key to bursting a spawn of mobs in the first seconds by dumping all AoEs empowered by Build-up + Gaussian. The usual rule of thumb is aiming for Hasten being permanent but it's not easy to achieve. Trying to build tanky is almost anathema to building a lot of recharge as there are choices to be made to go for one or go for the other. Some ATs, like Dominators, will live and die with recharge and barely need to be built tanky since their whole shtick is CCing mobs. No need to be tanky when mobs are frozen or stunned while being kil.. arrested.

Bog standard. I started with just one action bar in the middle. Of course soon had to increase to two to fit all the toggles and attacks. It grew to three bars because eventually ran out of room. And it's now four bars to fit all the incarnate buttons and etcwhich I've not had the need to increase further. I turn all macros into keybinds despite having four SG bases I regularly use. It's pretty much my WoW UI since it's what I evolved into: buttons down, target and my HP down so I can glance from buttons to HP without scouring the screen, and then one extra bar on the right to add whatever did not fit or is of least importance. The only annoyance is my inspiration window will pop out of place each time I enter an instance and I need to drag it back into place.

Someone looked at Silver Surfer and went hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I notice we're all skipping past Ninjutsu. It's a pretty sweet deal on a Sentinel. Heal, endurance, positional defense (hence ranged if wanting to focus on it). Downside would be no damage boost and having an anti-CC clickie instead of toggle.

I just posted a more traditional Stone/MA build. Without incarnates it has 60% defense and 70/76% resists with one or two stacks of the ATO, and then nearly 400% regen (58 HPs). With incarnates add a permanent 5% to the defense and resists.

I believe the stacking can only be done with a Scrapper. The only Parry like power that can be stacked by Brute/Tankers is Defensive Spin from Staff. I could be wrong about this though as I've not touched Broadsword in a while and Mids is not 100% trustworthy.

Probably not what you want to hear (and people seem to get their hackles up when ever I suggest it) but you could consider doing it with a Brute instead. Simply because their Fire Armor has an agro aura that keeps enemies close where the Scrapper version will send mobs running to the africas when ever they use Burn. Fire Armor is also a resistance based armor and Brutes get 90% resists where Scrappers have 75% but mostly the agro aura.

Unrelated, but what the heck is this thumbnail? Where did it got generated from?

Internet cutesy way of saying small. It's not an acronym.

On live we played Fight Club RP-PvP but very often the meleer fights would end in a draw. Very actually on point when two invulnerable enemies hit each other 😄 In a game there is certainly no comic book rules where the invulnerablest is also the strongest. It was pretty boring and even spectators would sigh once we realized we were in for another 10 minute fight until one of them would finally give up. I remember speccing into some odd picks like the epic frost pool to get some slows and make recharge slower just to be able to kill someone. Of course on the same account everyone turned into a puddle of goo if a debuffer joined the fray and I remember our RP-PvP reigning champion was a Poison MM where bodyguard kept them alive while they applied all poison debuffs until the other person could do nothing. This is all pre PvP changes and IOs being introduced. My own (brief) foray into playing at RP PvP in HC with a villain was not very good. As long as it was a meleer we could brawl and quip and slowly whittle each other. But the moment a Blaster came in it was game over. Tanker or not. But all bets were off when a *PvP* Blaster joined. Instead of useless Fly they'd have Super Jump which allowed to bounce around and travel power cancellation didn't stop inertia so they'd still finish their jump. I tried a variety of things like going into Web Grenade, but in the age of IOs there is enough resistance to these things. I'm sure someone more into it like @America's Angel would know counters like, last I hear Energy Aura was godly because the T9 worked in PvP so instead of being an instant death if a Blaster came in they could at least chase them. But never take Fly into PvP that's for sure. Any hit cancels it and we move slower than Hover while inertia makes jousting with SS or SS the way to move.

Must fight the Shephards. I remember putting that challenge in the forums. Fun times.

What I usually say in these threads is that there's no reason to ever not go Bio. Lets face it, if you're in trouble you'll have to reach out for an inspiration, so reaching out for Ablative Shield is pretty much the same. But I'd say Stone Armor otherwise. You'll want endurance back in some way or form and a heal or regen as even 5% hits pile up.