Rathulfr

Awesome, thank you!

Knockback is Energy's damage mitigation/crowd control feature. You will gimp yourself if you convert all your KB to knockdown, because KD is less effective than KB. That said, KB can be frustrating to team mates if not used properly. So the key here is learning to play (L2P) the build correctly, in a way that benefits you and your team (git gud). 1. Think before you blast. What is your position? What is the mob's position? What is the tank's position? Are the mobs locked down yet? Where is the target-based debuff active? What is my backstop: where will the mobs go when (not if) I knock them back? 2. Hover. Hover should be required on all Energy blasters, period. Hover above the crowd and KB down. 3. Focus on the outliers and runners: all groups of mobs have them. The melees don't want to chase them down anyway, so make them your b*tches. Hey look: that oddball is targeting our healer or controller -- take it out and be the team's hero, instead of its goat. 4. Slot KB2KD in your AoEs, not your single-target attacks: Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, and Nova. That will preserve the primary utility of KB in the Energy set, and save you some cash. I'm usually a ST kind of player, so I don't always train ET or EB, meaning that I need only 1 KB2KD, in Nova. YMMV.

+1 Inf for you. I'm smacking my head for not thinking of this immediately.

Would you be willing to share builds? I'd love to know how you're doing that. For a friend. ;)

I'm confused about which one I should pick: Practiced versus Master Brawler? It appears that Practiced offers status protection, while Master does not, but I've read elsewhere that this is not the case. Master shifts status protection to the other toggles? What? I don't understand? I prefer set-it-and-forget-it toggles to click powers. Fewer clicks = more better, for me. So which would you recommend? Thanks in advance for your replies.

I rolled up a Pain/Dark Defender and a Dark/Pain Controller to try out a support alt, and was surprised to discover that both "Melancholy" and "Melancholia" were available at the time. I have them both now, on Indomitable. I'm leaning toward the controller, so I might re-use one or the other with a different alt, eventually.

Can you elaborate as to why you like each sent? Pros and cons. Playstyle. Etc. I like Energy/WP because it feels the most like classic Iron Man to me: he dishes out powerful blasts of energy, but also is really tough and resilient. I'm always in the thick of battle, standing beside the tanker, blasting away with mobs in my face or across the room. He's the closest I've come to achieving the perfect mage-tank. I like Fire/Regen because ... FIRE! Heh heh heh heh heh ... It's wicked fast and has good AoE damage. I play him ranged, usually hovering above the battlefield, raining down fire. While not as durable as my Energy/WP, he's definitely more durable than my blasters. If I take significant damage, I just fly away for a few seconds for my insane +regen to refill the green bar, and then fly back in for more destruction.

I ask myself this when talking to customers every single day. +1 for TRUTH!

I've had hovering melee characters. The only drawback is that /follow doesn't always bring you close enough to some targets for your queued melee attacks. You have to nudge forward the last half-step to get it to fire. And because it doesn't happen consistently, it always takes me a second to realize "why no punchy-punch NOW?" In fact, I recently respec'ed my WP/EM brute without Hover for this exact reason. I have no idea why this is, because I never have this problem with my melee characters on the ground (unless I run into an obstacle of some kind). My F key is bound to /follow, and I routinely tab-target, press F to charge in, and attack. No muss, no fuss. YMMV.

I picture a tiny WB cartoon character sneaking around with a ridiculously large mallet behind its back when I think of stalkers with titan weapons.

Energy/WP and Fire/Regen, as per my sig block, below. ;)

We have a "Mr. Plumber" here in Kansas City. How about a "Mrs. Plumber" in Paragon City? ;D (edit) Check this out for some more ideas: https://www.plumbingsupply.com/plumbing_dictionary.html I'm liking "Back Flush" :o And FSWT: "Female sweat connection" ;D

+1 If my SG mates didn't kvetch about it so much, I wouldn't use the KB-to-KD procs at all: knocking the bad guys around was always the fun part of playing Energy/*. Watching them fly all over the place makes me giggle. Every. single. time. ;D But alas, I also want to be a good team player, so... :-\

Based on your guide, I decided to try out Power Push on my Energy/WP Sentinel, in lieu of Explosive Blast, which always seemed kind of "meh" to me. I had avoided Power Push because of the unintentionally deceptive description, and I figured I already had plenty of single-target KB. Wow, what a difference! Power Push is a solid hitter. It's fast to activate and recharge. I have it 4th in my rotation, instead of Focused Power Bolt, which used to be there. Now I can save FPB for my Offensive Opportunity, as my BIG single-target DPS blast for bosses, instead of wasting it (and the activation time) on minions and LTs. Thanks for the pro-tip!

Yep, I found out that the Avalanche proc is to add Knockdown to a power that doesn't have it, not change Knockback to Knockdown. I misunderstood it as the functional equivalent of the proc in Overwhelming Force and Sudden Acceleration, which it's not. I unslotted it and re-sold it for what I paid for it, so no net loss. I replaced it in the sixth slot with the KB-to-KD proc from SA. I already had enough Fire/Cold Def anyway, LOL.

I just spent a truckload of Inf to 6-slot Superior Avalanche into Nova, and the "chance" of KB-to-KD appears to be 0% (zero). Is this just a bad streak, or am I imagining this, or is this a legit bug?

Excellent read, Sunsette! Thank you.

Shooting runners in the back is probably one of the things I love most about playing ranged characters. ;D

Gravity builds are the controller/dominator equivalent of Energy Blast builds: it's all about the knockback, baby. ;D

Great, now I want to create a Trick Arrow/Battle Axe alt. :-\ ;D

It depends on your build, and the inherent strengths of the primary/secondary you've chosen. For example, my Willpower and Regen Sentinels already come equipped with lots of +regen and +recovery by default; therefore, I can make any bonuses to +regen and +recovery a lower priority. Adding +defense and +resistance is a higher priority, because my builds are light on those. As someone else said, it's also better to focus on those specific types of defense or resistance that are more common/frequent, such as smashing/lethal/energy or ranged versus melee (unless you plan to be more of a "blapper"). For my Incarnates, my Alpha and Hybrid are focused on +damage, to compensate for the Sentinel's inherently weaker damage output.

I did not know that. A friend of mine told me that he tried Overwhelming Force and was disappointed that it didn't proc reliably. Maybe I misunderstood him. I plan to try this out on Justin tonight, just for my own sanity. I gladly stand corrected. Thanks for the information!

Ah! I'd completely forgotten about that: nice catch, thank you!

It's been my observation that most folks playing Brutes these days are playing DPS, like they're Scrappers with better durability, instead of as Tankers with better damage. Consequently, they're choosing to forego Taunt in favor of another power that might be more useful for DPS, defense, or resistance.