Frosticus

Sure, negatron is a pretty good attack. gives you a spot for another purple dam proc and does well with achilies -res. xray in and of itself i is one of the "best" of the t2 attacks. it only takes 2 or so slots to max out dam enhancement so you could still fit 3-4 procs if you so desired.

that's just it and why it is so hard to roll anything other than fire for blasters. Fire doesn't need procs to excel. So you can end up with crazy fast cycling blaze (and blazing) and do unbelievable damage. I agree 100%, the idea you came up with is great. CC is still valid in tons of situations and I imagine if you revisited the optimization it would keep pace with many blaster combos...just not fire :)

What I'm saying is that ideally you'd have proton, cosmic, posi cell and xyray. All proc'd with at least 4 damage procs. Though if you are using beta decay then I'd personally (and do) use negatron. Then you will have a proper rotation without gaps in a (near) perma hasten build. The OP's build (and this isn't a knock on them) is relying on xray spam to fill large gaps in their attack chain. Not proc'd xray either. That will never keep pace with fire blast past the first cycle of your attacks. To get rad blast to perform you need to rethink how you approach playing and leverage its strengths. 1. Huge amount of procs that can be slotted 2. Massive -def. 3. aim + bu Proper utilization of 1, 2 and 3 means you can forgo almost all acc slotting in your st attacks. Think of your first rad attack like momentum building in titan weapons. Get it to stick and everything else flows. Which means intuition is not the best choice. You'd want musculature. How would it play? aoe's are still slotted more traditionally, so just fine and st damage will be considerably better.

My em/fa brute was my favorite warburg/rv zone pvp character before em and pvp nerfs. It was such a satisfying play experience. Hopefully the current devs can infuse some fun into the set again. Procs help a bit with et/tf, but the set is so anaemic that you want to get their rech down as low as possible, which undoes much of the proc advantage. It is also eclipsed by stone melee in every meaningful way.

You'd probably do both if you were chasing decent st damage.

Without trying to step on tender toes, or question the expertise of the advice you are being given, a different approach leads to some things to consider: Incarnates: -If your primary reason for going nature is for the 3 buffs then why not take resilient alpha? it boosts all 3. -Why use web envelope? there is a much better way to keep everyone in your rains that doesn't slow your output to a crawl, doesn't root you for considerable time and isn't limited by your ability to aim well. It also lets you off-tank on teams that need it because you should be able to with this combo. Melee Radial hybrid* * does assault hybrid work well with rains? I suspect not, but would love to hear otherwise. - If you go melee radial then you no longer need clarion and can use barrier, which is so much more potent on nature. AOE's: - assault (leadership) doesn't buff rains. Well I mean it does for like the first tick, but meh. You definitely want aim w/ gaussian. It is a huge buff to your aoe output. Single Target: - ice requires huge recharge investment to run a good chain. As it stands now you have huge gaps in your st chain and/or you will be spamming icebolt for pitiful damage. All the procs in the world won't make up for extensive periods of 0 damage. - either abandon procs in the ice attacks and get the chain tight (traditional build), or add another st attack (bitter freeze). It will make a huge difference vs solo bosses or team AV's. If your current attacks are just to clean up the odd straggler then add more procs to them as you can get damage buffing from so many sources. In general: - if you play fast you will almost never use spore cloud. It takes like 7 days to cast, the -tohit is of almost no value in the only place you need it (AV's) and while decent, the -dam isn't complimented by any meaningful -res to amplify it. I'd skip it in a final build myself and I'd never use it to fill holes in a build unless you are a very passive player. - Lifegiving spores are ok, I doubt you'd miss them in late game. - frost breath doesn't mix with the playstyle that uses entangling aura. Something to think about. - if your plan is to be in close to maximize entangling aura then I'd pick incarnates and an epic pool that compliment that intent and help it where it fails. I went over incarnates, but I'd also go dark epic. - you should be able to have softcapped melee and ranged def with just a handful of targets in range (much better than typed def imo), similar global rech, much higher overall resistances, much better mitigation, way better functional use of rains and be operating at, or near the damage cap a significant portion of your time for much better overall damage both aoe and st. And more proc damage. Just something to think about.

You def want: envenom, weaken, poison trap and venomous gas I strongly recommend putting the available damage procs and -res procs into envenom, weaken and PT They proc pretty reliably in weaken and envenom, but also help to show you how big (small) the aoe is against the group as the power effects are otherwise quite minimal. PT is of course a proc bomb. Love it. Neuro breath is a pretty good power. I definitely use it up until I have venomous gas. Once I have VG I want to be up close right away. I put the smashing damage proc in neuro. Again it helps show just how big the area of effect is as it procs well. Plus you may well do some damage if you are taking the time to cast it. The heal, ally mez protection and rez are all good enough powers. You aren't a healor so don't try to be but helping patch someone up between spawns can be valuable. Mez protection really helps most squishies play more confidently, but it can get time consuming. The rez is a rez. Poison is about facilitating quick clear speeds. A downed teammate impedes that. Of those three powers I would take the rez. But only if I have vengence (which I do). Veng then rez = faster clear times for the team. Having the heal in that situation can trap you into trying to keep them alive, but it is faster for the team to just let them die then veng+rez chem rounds stack nicely with strong -dam of weaken and venomous gas and get boosted nicely by all the -res you toss out (also a reason for the -res procs). It should really start to click once venomous gas is in place.

The best candidate I've come up with for maximizing this is Hot Feet. In that it has a fast enough cast time that you arent wasting valueable time casting it, good enough procs to consider, big enough aoe that you don't have to jump through hoops to use it and a non-noteworthy enough effect that you won't miss it being off for a few seconds at the start of the fight.

Given how powerful forcefeedback can be: I think of it more as that forcefeedback proc often requires two slots. Many of the best spots for that proc only shine with the kb>kd IO as well. If you have a power that does well without the converter then I personally view it as a bonus. glass half full 🙂

there is indeed. I have a different perspective with this character from most of my others as it is primarily intended to team. So irradiate is gold for me. I look at it as another solid big aoe debuff. Huge -def, decent proc rate on 2 -res procs. Add some damage procs if you like. Cosmic and proton are heavy hitters once loaded up with damage procs. Not far off from the almighty blaze+blazing bolt

Mid's is pretty accurate. Except when you start adding recharge as mids doesn't distinguish between global and internal rech slotting. As a defender you are almost always better off from a damage (dps) perspective slotting a damage proc before a damage enhancement. I'd have to check, but this holds true even for nukes other than inferno. *things can and do shift when you start talking about overall slotting efficiency of a power though as you may want to enhance other aspects than just raw damage output.

reasonably confident it ticks away irrespective of what you are doing. I noticed some big variance in my demon/storm times from 48 sec up to 1 min without much explanation as it was happening on clean runs and it is a relatively low proc build. That is a massive swing in dps - like nearly 200dps. There is a lot going on with that many summons and there could be another explanation of course.

I guess it might not be obvious why powerboost isn't supposed to work with Fade given that PB isn't the thing boosting the +res. I make the mistake of assuming that casual (ish) players don't really care about the nuts and bolts and that those that do care have a solid understanding of how the powers are coded. Resistance based powers are flagged to ignore outside buffs and enhancements otherwise damage enhancements buff the resistance value. As I demonstrated with fade, they buff it at an extraordinary rate too. Imagine a tanker hitting buildup and gaining 80% enhancement value to their resistances!! Maybe a neat mechanic for tanks, but that is a different discussion and would quickly encounter balance issues. But I digress. That flag (i can't think of an exception, but it may exist) covers the whole power. Which would mean the defense portion of the power also ignores outside buffs and enhancements. ie powerboost.

This is (I thought) a well known bug and subsequent exploit. I surely didn't discover it. All you are doing is repeating what I already stated. Call it a party trick if you like, but it is what it is. +dam buffs the resistance of fade. How you take advantage of that is up to the individual, but it isn't hard to exploit. There are 2 solutions that will likely be implemented at some point. 1. They flag PB to not affect fade. This will be like every other def power with enhanceable res. They simply missed the flag when implementing. This will resolve damage enhancements buffing the resistance and tame a likely overpowered ability. 2. Make the damage resistance unenhanceable. I don't care much beyond that. Just letting people know that many people suggest to build around an exploit which will ultimately lead to a bunch of upset players when it gets fixed as they went into something with incomplete/inaccurate information.

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't forego defense bonuses. My proc builds, which are absolutely laden with procs, generally require incarnates to work because the procs come at the expense of acc and endurance enhancements. That way I can still get the necessary def numbers, damage enhancements and recharge (where needed). The issue for me is getting enough global rech bonuses because procs usually mean losing out on a good number of set bonuses. So I strive for perma hasten (or close to it) and call it good enough.

I dunno, maybe try it? The power has enhanceable def AND resistance. Not like farsight. not at all. As a result PB boosts the def and..... drum-roll please.... damage enhancements boost the resistance. Hence reds (or fulcrum, or gaussian, etc) Like I said: 26% def all and 37% res s/l/n/p. Not too challenging to perma. Better than many t9 armors yes? edit: 37.52% res to be specific. 9.38% * 4 (damage cap).

As you may or may not know, Fade is not supposed to work with powerboost. But as long as it does you may as well exploit it fully and pop some reds right before as well. The two combined will be good for 26% def to all and 37% res to s/l/n/p. Lol, that's better than many t9 armors.

Agree 100%. I think most of the people that still view poison in a negative light aren't engaging in the current meta game. And that's ok, but it is one of the best sets for high end team play. Also leveling a poison/rad. Proc potential is pretty nice.

let's get one thing right. dark control has some nice proc opportunities, behind plant and grav depending on what you seek from your procs, but definitely a great choice. dark affinity has some of the lowest proc potential of any of the debuff sets. though it is super powerful and can easily support a proc focused primary and epic in many ways. I would vote fire/dark of the two you suggest Some good synergy and potential as an all round strong character

achiles, lady grey proc, shield breaker proc

I personally wouldnt go poison on a MM and I'm actively promoting that people give poison some love and see how effective is can be as the game currently plays. 2 reasons: 1 - it isnt particularly good at keeping others alive. Others will include your pets. It's fine for yourself as you have IOs and insp. Less so for your pets 2 - Everything the set does good to well is brought together and elevated by venomous gas. But MMs dont have that. And while noxious gas is a very strong power the uptime is unfortunately pretty low.

Personally, I find storm to be the most entertaining buff/debuff set. I recommend it on any AT that can access it. Great visuals and a huge variety of employable tactics for different scenarios. It gets stronger with each level and seemingly has no limit. Primaries I like plant and gravity. Plant because is is visually impressive and numerically it is very strong. Grav because it feels the most powerful. Lift and propel have a lot of weight and wormhole can reshape the battlefield unlike anything else.

an absolute game changer for storm and the playability of the set. The ease of dropping things like freezing rain around a corner in the blink of an eye is very beneficial. Consider that you dont even have to be able to see where you are putting it now, just get a target, scoot to a blind spot and execute the button.

6? nah. 4-5 slots by lvl 21 depending on how much acc you slot. 1-2 acc, 3 procs you can get as many damage procs into poison trap as you are able to right away. It doesn't need purples.

If personal survivability is a major concern then I'd probably go troller. Though the defender numbers are quite tempting. It's why I originally went plant/poison. Plant is a massive boost to survivability thru great control and even a solid regen power to help sustain. It also bunches the spawns via seeds to make the splash debuffs much more effective. I strongly recommend the combo to anyone interested in delving into poison. If you are less concerned about personal protection. Maybe you run with a solid group or you are ok heavily investing in IOs and build restrictions then I have no doubt a poison defender will be awesome. Remember you can get envenom and poison trap out in about the same time as a storm gets down freezing rain. That's 25-65% -res (before procs) and a damage proc nuke vs 35% -res.