Sovera

Here I was giving the example of a Rad defender in another thread the OP made and didn't even realize how apt it was.

Probably because anyone who has endurance problems beelines for an incarnate that will fix it. Regular choice is Ageless for the recharge as a bonus but Cardiac as well. Anyone who does -not- have endurance problems will not notice an endurance boost. I did look at those numbers and they seem like a nice compromise considering neither Assault nor Melee add much to us personally. Yes, it's worth considering as a third choice. Damage boost is negligible but unlike Melee and Assault the numbers are shared for the team. And 12% defense is nothing to sneeze at.

*shudder* No... thanks... That has all the trimmings of playing a F2P game.

After some more exploring I can't say I got a good answer. The best option seems to be Melee Radial Embodiment as it adds defense and regen. With a saturated 10y 10 person aura it pushes defense to 55% and regen to 700%. That seems like it has a use as a possible second panic button when Barrier is on its last legs but not yet recharged. At a more conservative 5 person in the aura it still leaves defense at 47% and regen at 479%. If I was to do another solo ITF on buffed enemies (but screw that with the new defense values the romans got) it would be a good choice. It's definitely a possibility as a second anti-squish button for a squishy-ish build. The truth is that the game is not (yet, page 3 when??) hard enough and I'll be the first to say I wander around eating alphas and face tanking things even as a squishy Fire Armor on a squishy(er) Brute. That means there is a good chance using it just has no purpose since the build is already surviving well enough on its own. On the other hand despite in a test that favored it (two minute ish test for something that has a two minute duration) the Assault test was only a 25-ish second improvement. Once we add jumping from group to group, the need to build up stacks, the two minute downtime, the impact of Assault appears minimal. Things are already melting anyway? Overall it's not very complicated though. Like Degenerative the long term effects appear minimal. This is doubled because we either use the power on CD instead of when needed and then it's not available when needed (it speeds up killing AVs or helps surviving when in danger, unless we used it at random and when we reach the AV or need to survive after Barrier's initial boost is over it is not available) or we save it for when we need it and then there is a good chance it gets little or no use (wait for the hypothetical panic that requires a button but it never comes). So because of this I'm just going to take Assault. I'm surviving well enough. If I was just... 20% squishier then I feel the Melee Radial would be a good option to alternate with Barrier much like squishies used to alternate Rune of Power with something else. As it is best leave the Hybrid slot be a mindless clicky minor damage boost.

As a follow-up from the previous post it makes me ponder if Assault is really a good use for the Hybrid slot. I am all for damage increases but T4 and all I got was a 15-20 second improvement? Not particularly interesting or decisive. As a whole I have not found Assault impactful. I will run some tests but like Degenerative it might not be something with a huge impact outside of niche situations. The one that does regen could be useful but 90% of the time survival is already good.

I wasn't sure which Assault to take since Br00ts don't much care for +damage buffs, so I've tested both and since it's tested I'll leave the findings here for others. +damage assault: 2:10 2:05 Double Hit: 2:20 2:20 Welp, minimal difference and what there was might have been from whiffing. I'll take the +damage.

You morbidly invulnerable (see wut I did there?? ;D) people need to take a whiff of danger instead of playing unkillable sets!

Not sure if serious.

As someone who always levels by playing and who had a major stint as a Tanker I can't say I felt the lack of Taunt. There were times, yes, where two spawns were close together and agro overflows, but I can count those on the fingers of one hand. More power for those who like and use Taunt though, but the number of times I see people jump into the middle of a group and then use it on the group is amazing though. Again, nothing really -wrong- about it. Just useless since they were already agroed. But again the game did not get worse because they did it. The -range of Taunt is where I find Taunt more useful. So many annoying ranged mobs who will plink from afar with the biggest culprits the protean clockworks we get in Tinpex. but again, in a team it all melts. It's solo I would like having it. Tbh I have the free power slot to take Taunt but was disgusted in realizing it did not work on Battle Maiden and that was that with my Taunt experiment.

Same, but, it's a package deal. To get the costumes they neglected other areas. We got the other areas here but not the costumes. It's easy to focus on the costumes or power sets the other servers have but not the... well... everything else.

Quick update. I've been climbing the vet levels and incarnating. The character behaves very very well. It's become a favorite for max level play though lower than Yin and I'll still take the Fire/Ice melee since nothing beats low level Burn + Frost at Synapse and lower. The squish of Fire Armor is not altogether too different than on a Tanker in that throwing Barrier when things are going badly works the same between both ATs with the bonus that the greater damage of the Brute plays well in the Brunker spirit of killing before being killed. I've been doing ITF for vet levels and it's silly how a build that makes big booms in ST also razes a spawn by BU + Burn + WH. Fire Armor covers EM's AoE weakness and balances it out. The squish remains but I'm holding point in whatever TF and yet to die (almost did the last one when the squid ocean showed up and I delayed Barrier trying to squeeze more damage). In AoE situations Total Focus + Energy Transfer + Burn + Whirlwind is -this- close of being a loop but sometimes I need to throw an Energy Punch as a filler. It's honestly pretty good since AoE's nice but bosses need murderizing so I can drop my super heavy hitters. Most of the time it's just a ghetto Rad Melee gameplay though. If I count 3-5 mobs around I just do the ST rotation and let Burn kill the extras.

Getting everything will be impossible so you will have to choose. Getting more S/L defenses is usually my priority but it needn't be yours. E/N defenses are good at 40%. Resistances (remember to toggle Offense Adaptation down where Stamina and Health is since it will 'steal' 7.5% global resistances) will have 6.7% per ATO stack that you have in Genetic Contamination. Having it in a toggle is not good though so try placing it in an attack that you will spam such as Smite. Two stacks are easy to get so that's 13.4% resistances you can account for. You will probably want Barrier for a panic button so that's another 5% making it 18.4%. That means if you push your resistances to around 77-78% with the ATO toggled on (Mids gives 6.7% but only one stack) you'll be at 85% with a second stack and 90% with Barrier. You can not take in account these gimmicks and just brute force to 90%, but everything else over 90% will go to waste if you do. I would personally not pick Dark Obliteration since you dearly needs those slots and powers (you didn't pick Smite for example, which is one of the best attacks DM has) since you can already do an infinite loop of Life Siphon, Touch of Fear, Shadow Maul, Touch of Fear. Repeat. Dito on proc bombing DNA Siphon. It's your endurance recovery tool and it should be slotted accordingly. Maybe if you didn't have a low level AoE rotation but this is not the case since you can do the above rotation by level 20. Afterwards you need to decide on your rotation. You can do a low level faster animating but lower damage Siphon, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch. Or you can do the higher level (as n, need to be 38 or exemped to 33) Midnight Grasp, Smite, Siphon, Smite. I personally prefer the one without MG but I like exemplaring and I'm strapped for slots. If you want Gloom instead that's fine since it's pretty strong and thematic though you may suffer against -tohit debuffing enemies by not having Focused Accuracy. Like this your resistances are good for S/L at least, even with Offense Adaptation toggled on, your S/LE/N/F/C defenses are at a neat 40% waiting for Barrier to finish capping them (obviously not all content is difficult so if you're not in trouble then don't bother using Barrier on cooldown because the stupendous amount of healing the build has should make it survive just fine). Hasten is okay-ish at 137 seconds. Not too bad, not too great, but, sacrifices. You'll also be protected from -tohit from CoT/Banished Pantheon, Circle of Thorns, Tsoo/Cabal, etc. You now just need to decide on the rotation. If you want Smite then take out Midnight Grasp and go for the low level Siphon rotation. Downsides is less damage, upsides is having full ST and AoE skills by level 20. If you want the Midnight Grasp rotation then Shadow Punch will do in a pinch even if Smite is better. Gloom is a powerhouse so you can also ditch Midnight Grasp for it and try for Siphon, Shadow Punch, Gloom, Shadow Punch (again, Smite better, so if you can squeeze it in do so).

You can't push E/N resistances very high because Bio has nothing to help that. I'm not sure if you mistook what I said above because what I meant was 'since Bio doesn't have E/N resistances you need to pump E/N defenses up', which was my reaction when you went back to 33% defense to E/N. Look back to the last build I posted and check the numbers: 40% to S/L defenses, 85% to S/L resistances with Offensive toggled on. 40% to E/N. This is your bread and butter. From there your goal is tweaking things according to need but you don't have an infinite amount of slots. Just keep in mind E/N resistances will always be Bio's weak point. Shore it where possible but don't turn your good defenses mediocre to push bad resistances into mediocre. Then you'll just have mediocre all around.

Your E/N defense is back to 33%. Look at your E/N resistances with Offensive Adaptation on (remember it's down here) Then look back your E/N defenses. If you don't have good resistances you want to at least not get hit. As for the rest you can now decide what suits you best.

Some very small tweaks since you had nailed most of it down on your own (good job again). Like this your E/N and S/L defense goes up to 40% waiting for Barrier to cap it, and even with Offense Adaptation on (if you toggle it you'll notice it 'steals' 7.5% global resistances) you'll be sitting at just about 85% for Barrier to also finish capping. Some sacrifices had to be mad and they we pedantic (we really won't notice the difference between 80% and 85% resistances) so if you feel like it move some slots around for better QoL tweaks that fit your playstyle better. Focused Accuracy is just to save you if you fight against things the debuff your accuracy. You can leave it toggled off otherwise. Gloom with only one slot was not going to greatly help you. Now for the rotation: Total Focus (6.38 seconds), Energy Transfer (1.2), Energy Punch (1), Bone Smasher (1.5), Energy Punch (1). That makes 4.7. Total Focus has a really awkward cooldown. So perhaps Total Focus, Bone Smasher (1.5), Energy Transfer (1.2), Energy Punch (1) Bone Smasher (1.5), Energy Punch (1) which makes 6.2. That's a bit better and can be repeated while Hasten is up. Speaking of Hasten it's not super high. 146 is definitely on the worse side of things. You can also sacrifice resistances and add more recharge instead if you are someone who plays in teams a lot. With all the buffs and debuffs you might never even notice a difference. Just something to consider since isn't THAT hard that we must min max it to the hilt. And that's me saying it 😄

Probably. You need to look at your attacks and if you have gaps waiting for them to come back up. If you look a bit further down I have a EM/Fire build posted where I go over my rotation so I don't have gaps when fighting and trying to maximize TF + fast ET. It was something like TF + ET + Burn + Energy Punch + Bone Smasher + Energy Punch. Repeat. No gaps where we wait for something to recharge. While leveling or when exemplaring you need to consider you need attacks. If you go lower than 28 for any reason your have TF + EP and that's it (or maybe use Power Crash as a single target attack). With Bone Smasher you can at least go TF + EP + BS + EP and maybe use Power Crash as a filler. You can make room for it by removing Ball Lighting and Electric Fences. Strictly speaking you don't need more AoE since you can run an endless loop of Total Focus + Power Crash + Whirlwind Hands + Power Crash. Repeat.

Darn proud of you, Wut. You've reached the goals! 85% to S/L resistance and 41% to S/L defense was masterfully done. But you need to remember than when you toggle on Offensive Adaptation the numbers will go down. It's actually 76% resistance to S/L. There is still room for improvement with the slotting but your goals were reached without weird slotting like six slotting Taunt sets into attacks. Thumbs up, bro. Things you can now consider is: - Your E/N defense should be at 40% and is only at 33%. You can help it by giving it a third defense slot. You can slot three Eradication in DNA Siphon instead of the not very useful slotting you have. Both should have it at 40%. - The sixth Blistering Cold in Energy Transfer is not giving you anything useful and can be turned into a damage proc. - The extra slot in Combat Jumping ditto. - You can move some slotting around to slot four Titanium Coating instead of four Unbreakable guard (more resistances and the loss of SL/ defense will still leave you at 40%). - Adding more slots to Build-up so it recharges faster (two Rectified Reticle will give S/L defense so you can mess around with your slotting). - Five Touch of Death instead of five Mako's Bite will give a more useful E/N resistance than less useful toxic/psi (it's not that Toxic/Psi resistance is bad to have, but there is not a ton of it in the game. But there is a lot of E/N) as well as the Touch of Death damage proc is better (negative damage) than Mako's Bite damage proc (slashing damage). - Energy Transfer is your big attack and it loves damage procs (usually has a a fifty fifty chance of going off) so if you move the slotting from Bone Smasher to Energy Transfer and find another slot you can have three damage procs further pushing ET's damage. - Total Focus loves damage procs even more than ET (sometimes as high as 90% chance that they will go off) so trying to fit damage procs in there while maximizing recharge and damage will only push damage further.

For most things even 'squishy' protection will be enough. That's because we have Barrier. When things go badly it's a panic button anyone has access to. And that's if completely wanting to avoid inspirations. Do you want to solo all the things? Do you want to only team? Do you want to solo but nothing that is particularly exotic such as killing the Ruularu arcs? In a team most anything will do as long as building for the basics. You might not be Tanker but you won't fold in the few seconds it takes for the tsunami of AoEs to wipe a pack of mobs. For most factions non exotic anything will do. For the exotics its different but building specifically for them is a thing if you actually intend to go against them.

Got it on my toggle which is probably not the best use, but meh.

I'll be honest with you that defense will probably make you feel better than a resistance set, but it's true that those 5% hits will accumulate and you'll need a heal. It's why I don't play shield or Super-Reflexes. That said you could pump your resistances more and minimize your problems, then aim for something like Rebirth as an emergency. You can easily survive on greens bought between missions by typing /ah. For example you forgot the 5% global res unique and have slots dedicated to things you have no need such as AoE defense. Try this for example. It's not perfect but you can tweak it to your tastes. You get more S/L and E/N resistances, a worse Hasten, better recovery, etc. I suggest you keep One With the Shield as your panic button + recovery button and alternate using Conserve Power for your endurance needs. Use Ageless for more recharge and more recovery, or, use Rebirth instead. Like that you get two panic buttons instead of just a boost to recovery, something you can replace for Recovery Serums if you find Conserve Power + One With the Shield somehow is not enough. You don't need Cross Punch. You can run a near infinite loop of Total Focus, Power Crash, Whirlwind Hands, Power Crash. Repeat.

You're getting consistent 30 seconds better than I was so I want to dissect it and look for improvements. Thanks for the build, bro o/ Yeah I see it now, that -res in Burn is probably what's skewing it even when not using Gloom. Did you consider the Superior Unrelenting Fury in Whirlwind Hands? You'll lose 5% recharge but get better raw stats and more S/L resistance/defense. As for the Evolving Armor it's what gives the -res effect and since it's a perma effect that doesn't rely on procs I'd like to compare the numbers since I'm a big believer in testing instead of mathing it out. I -could- build it and run it, but since you already got it all set up it would save some time.

Somesie, can I tempt you into a run with Evolving Armor turned off? Just to compare the numbers. And could I tempt you into sharing the EM/FA Br00t build? By the numbers I'm assuming Gloom is involved.

All good points. There is one last thing to consider which is the duration of the 50%. At 3.5 seconds and assuming it procs when the hit actually hits then an option that would make TF enjoy the proc will eat 2.8 seconds of those 3.5. Where in TF it lands, then ET (1.2), Energy Punch (1) leaves it at 2.1. Ample time to still land Bone Smasher and thus have all three within the 50% buff.

Yeah. You take a Stalker and the ST will improve. Same defense as a Scrapper, same damage as well. No agro auras though. Or you take a Brute or Tanker and pair it with Fire Armor and you can also pup the ST damage with Burn and Fiery Embrace. But outside of those two options Electric Melee is neither very good for AoE nor ST. It does look great though and in a team you should not notice with everyone helping pitching it.

Might as well take Burn tbh. It is still a chunky attack that double dips into procs and if you're following a Tank they are providing the agro aura so mobs don't run off. And with Scrappers and Fire Armor being squishy dropping Burn that makes mobs run away is a form of CC. Not being an -actual- CC but rather a coded thing even the romans with their uber CC resistance shouldl be fleeing. Great to get a breather and drop some trucks of pain via TF and ET. Then they return and Burn's up again 😄