Sovera

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.

I've reorganized things in the first post. My new ranking is: - All rounder good-out-of-the-box build: Fire/Ice. Pick it up, play, no need to fuss with IO castle of cards. Ice Patch keeps the player and the team safe until defenses are in place. The slightly slower pylon times do not reflect that cold damage is a lot less resisted than smash/lethal in the 'real world'. - Turtle defensive build: Fire/Martial Arts. Best defensive option. Even most psi attacks meet the Ranged defense wall. Doesn't lose in offense but relies on extensive IO gimmicks which means it blooms late. - Dragon offense oriented build: Fire/Claws. (Near) permanent 70% damage boost. No fuss burninating between Burn and Spin being PbAoEs so no need to re-position as with Frost. Both also crunch in ways that leave other sets deeply envious and the single target is (slightly) the best of the three.

*smack* Anyway, I was messing with a Ice Melee/Fire Armor Br00t version earlier on and got this. At the cost of about 27% resistance to E/N it will make up the loss of early Burn with Fury which will clear entire groups with Frost. Later on Fury makes a substantial difference in things like Freezing Touch (180+ extra damage compared to Tanker) but less so in others (about extra 60 damage in Burn which is about the damage increase in the other attacks as well because of sacrifices in not including damage procs). But considering S/L defense and resistance has been wrangled to near Tanker equivalent levels and Ice Patch helps with survival it might be worth it. I prefer Fiery embrace at 28 instead of 35 and Burn at 18 instead of 28, but Fury makes a difference and not having to take Frozen Fists is nice. It's up for the individual to decide.

I can only speak as a Tanker, but yes, and yes. Anything is survivable in PvE since we can tailor the difficulty and in a team we are bound to be covered in buffs.

Exactly. That's why I love my Fire Tankers and even Scrappers I feel as slow (despite maths and testing showing that they are not). There's also the matter of burst. Once something is dead it cannot be made double dead, so Tanker damage is more than fine once we start thinking that Build-up + AoEs will kill most things. It's the tougher and longer fights where the damage difference shows. Scrappers are definitely for maximum damage though, but Burn has a.. uhm... how to put it... Lets say that Scrappers have more horsepower under the hood, but until a certain level they lack the means to let it out. Where when I level/play a Fire Tanker I can start (near) every fight either with Build-Up or Firey Embrace thus bursting for the initial seconds and then have my AoE from the secondary with Burn as a second AoE/heavy ST attack as low as Posi 1.

Scrappers and Tankers are worlds apart. My most destructive Tanker will do the Trapdoor test (Scrapper forums for more info) in 6 minutes. The best Scrapper times are as low as 4 minutes and something. My best Pylon time is 3 minutes. A Scrapper can scrap past one minute (though usually 1:30 for the top models). On the other hand Tankers do the ITF solo challenge (+4x8, enemies buffed, players debuffed) and survive it. This is not as great as it sounds since when the hell does this metric ever enter in regular gameplay? For most things Scrappers can be build sturdy enough to survive content as long as they kill it fast enough. I play a Fire Armor combo because I find Fire Armor Tankers bloom super early. No waiting until level 30-40 to feel powerful or sturdy enough as Scrappers (in my experience) need to. By level 20 I'm melting swathes of enemies and laugh in the face of danger (especially with the FireArmor/Ice Melee variant). It's a simple case of deciding whether to build to be more damage oriented or more sturdy.

You're the only one who can answer that. Having it turned on increases Hover speed, as well as Fly speed, it increases KB protection, it gives protection against -fly effects. And yes, it adds another one slot wonder for LotG 7.5%. If this is important to you or not only you can say. Personally I love it since it turns Hover slow crawl to a fast jog and increases Fly speed to almost reach the cap and I'm starving for places to slot LotG.

Everything that could possibly be said on this subject has been said, but if you are at the level where not knowing how to afford your SOs then you can probably make good use of the guide in my signature. Just to give a perspective by running the first TF in the game (and the least rewarding) you get something like 3 mill. Completely slotting in generic IOs (not SOs because as you noticed they go red, while generic IOs never go red) costs something like 2 mill. You can even solo these if you feel so inclined because of not liking groups. Running missions arcs (not newspaper missions, not Architect missions) also gives merits. As per the guide in the signature check your salvage, see how many you have, you might have a lot more money to your name than you think.

You're chasing too much recharge considering you have zero cooldowns. I would break apart more stuff (toxic damage and fire/cold is not that prevalent to spends slots on) and add more damage procs. Despite this I would replace the psi proc in Focus for the Force Feedback or at least a Gladiator's Javelin proc. Toxic isn't great but psi gets slapped hard too. Again the FF proc would be the usual thing but with zero cooldowns I don't see the point. I would replace Agility. It only adds a bit of defense but you're already at 57% for Melee and 52% for the rest (both +3% uniques in RoP). Take Alpha 33% if you want damage and some endurance recovery. Resilient for more resistances could be a given but it doesn't add much since SR has no resistance powers and the autos don't seem to count according to Mids. Consider maybe Cardiac to ease your endurance. Which cues into not taking Shockwave being bold. Spin is great, true, but Shockwave adds more AoE and soft CC. It will eat your endurance though hence maybe Cardiac. I'd keep the ST rotation to FU, Slash and Focus even with a gap. With all the recharge chasing you've done the gap is a measly 0.3 seconds so worth it. For Incarnates you can either go for Rebirth as a big heal and lots of regen which plays well with all the defense, or Barrier, which seems stupid since there is so much defense to begin with, but it will also pump up your resistances. You can probably ease up on the resistance chasing and shuffle things around, then consider alternating Barrier and Rune of Protection, and when I mean 'alternate' what I mean is 'when you're in trouble these two are your panic buttons. If there is no panic then let them be'. Overall I think your build is already solid and it's just some min maxing. Just consider you don't need a ton of recharge because you have no cooldowns, that your attacks might welcome damage procs to help your Tanker damage, that Shockwave is a worthwhile addition,