kenlon

I'm not, actually - hover and (suppressed) stealth provide the same defense. They both give a base of 1.75% defense on a blaster - I verified this on test just in case I was misremembering.

I'd say almost 29 percent more regen/s would be worth it, combined with the absorb shield from Preventative Medicine. *shrug* Though I agree with using it and Thunderstrike to start out fights - jump in, TS, and then FoT. So, here's my revised build, based mostly on Hyperstrike's, since it was almost perfect for my needs. I dropped everything flight related because trying to use hover in melee is pain, took Stealth (same defense as Hover, when suppressed), Vengeance as LotG mule and Short Circuit because it would feel weird playing the set without it.

Why would you not slot a sustain power to increase healing? I'm curious.

That's basically exactly the sort of thing I was looking for, and will make an excellent base to tweak from. Thank you.

You fundamentally do not understand economics. If supply goes up because more people are farming/converting/auctioning, then prices will go down. If prices go down and people stop doing those things, then the supply will contract and the prices will come back up. There can't be price gouging in a market where a) everything is convertible from one product to another and b) no one can control the creation of new goods to feed into the market. Sellers dump things at 1 inf on the market because they do not feel it is worth the time for them to go and travel to a store, sell the items, and then go back to whatever they were doing. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, given that stuff like low end recipes drop in enormous quantities and are not in much demand. You have a solution in search of a problem. What actual problem does this behavior cause for anyone? Given that the major source of the IOs people want come from converting and reselling things that people don't, thus keeping the price of desired IOs down to a reasonable point, then requiring people to sell at store prices will actively harm the players!

What you've got there is a far better generalist Blaster build than what I had put up, but I'm intentionally making a gimmick build. The only ranged attacks I had slotted were Thunderous Blast and Tesla Cage, and the latter was only slotted up for the recharge bonus, as I have no intention of using any ranged attacks ever outside of the nuke. Like my original post said, making a blaster with the intention of not using your ranged attacks is dumb, but I'm doing it anyway. 🙂 Any ideas for a better way for me to build him under those guidelines?

Getting a feel for the minimum survivability you can build for and get away with it takes time. And often involves things that aren't obvious at first glance, so don't worry, we've all been there. Just remember that getting more damage output helps your team more than excessive durability. You want to go for Musculature Core Paragon, not Radial. The only thing Radial really gets you is a miniscule amount of endurance/second (.14 on the suggested build I made), and the reason for taking Musculature at all is damage. So go for the extra damage. Barrier is great for squishy ATs - my MA/Regen uses it, frex - but is overkill for tough ATs. The only thing that is going to kill you is a defense debuff cascade, and you have no inherent Defense Debuff Resistance. Take Ageless Radial and you get DDR, a recharge bump to shorten your Hasten cooldown, and a good solid shot of endurance. On the Hybrid power, Assault Core is better than Assault Radial, as you won't be anywhere near the damage cap most of the time, and thus it does more for you than the doublehit from Radial. Focus Chi is, again with the sample build I made you, +80% damage for ten seconds on a thirty second cooldown. Gaussian's proc is +80% damage for 5.25 seconds on a 1PPM schedule. Even discounting that a damage boost that you can control the timing on is infinitely better than one that goes off whenever it feels like it, Focus Chi is straight out better. And, if you want to slot in the Gaussian's proc in Focus Chi, then it will go off 95% of the time when you hit Focus Chi with the build I gave you. (I'd suggest dropping the Winter's Gift slow resist you have in Super Jump for it since Ageless Radial gives you debuff resist.) Not to mention that Tactics in your current build has you way over the needed value of accuracy, so it's doubly wasted.

It's a good, solid build, though I would suggest dropping Cardiac alpha in favor of Musculature. That only loses you about 3-4% DR. and you've got heavy enough layered defenses that the tiny boost to +res is negligible, and you have Ageless which helps with avoiding defense cascade failure. Boosting your survivability caps out - once you can live through anything, more is wasted. Damage is permanently additive. Tactics is also massively overslotted, with it not really being needed in your build at all. If you pull it out and instead take Vengeance, you not only get the 5th LotG in and have access to a fun thing to use on blasters you team with, but you can take the five slots from there, put three into Combat Jumping and one into Maneuvers, to snag those set bonuses while at the same almost entirely negating the def loss from dropping the six slot Gaussian's set bonus. And you end up with one enhancement slot unused, so you can put that elsewhere. You end up, in total, dropping 0.1% S/L, F/C and E/N, while actually gaining 1.15% Psi. Now, it does hit your pure positionals a little harder, at 1.35% Melee/Ranged/AoE . Even with the drop in +To-Hit, you're still at 98%+ against +4s for everything but Dark Regeneration, which is at a mere 92%. You also really don't need the trifecta of Conserve Power, Physical Perfection and Ageless - you could easily drop Physical Perfection for example, take Focus Chi and drop the spare enhance slot in there. Pop in two Membrane Exposure HOs and you have a massive increase in your ability to hit hard targets for ten seconds out of every thirty, putting you up to the 160-180% range for that time. Here's the build after I fiddled with it. Note that the build was made using the Unofficial Mid's Reborn updates, found here, which fixes things like the level for Dragon's Tail and the ability to slot in the Achilles Heel proc.

One of the first characters I made back on Live was an elec/elec/elec blaster, with the hopes of using end drain and secondary attacks to play him like a melee controller. Needless to say, it was an utter failure. So I'm having a go at it again, with this E3 pure blapper, This build is bad. I know it's bad. Making a blaster with no intent to ever put a ranged attack on your bar is a stupid idea. I don't care, I'm doing it anyway. 😄 I'm pretty sure I've sacrificed too much in order to get permahasten, and I'm not sure exactly where to go with it, so I'm hoping to get some ideas from the experts for how to make it just a little less terrible. Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7 https://github.com/Crytilis/mids-reborn-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Edgerunner: Level 50 Science Blaster Primary Power Set: Electrical Blast Secondary Power Set: Electricity Manipulation Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Leadership Ancillary Pool: Electrical Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Charged Bolts -- Empty(A) Level 1: Electric Fence -- Empty(A) Level 2: Charged Brawl -- SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg(A), SprDfnBrr-Dmg/Rchg(3), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(3), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), SprDfnBrr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), SprDfnBrr-Rchg/+Status Protect(7) Level 4: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(13), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(13) Level 6: Short Circuit -- SynSck-EndMod(A), SynSck-Dam/Rech(15), SynSck-EndMod/Rech(15), SynSck-Dam/Rech/Acc(17), SynSck-Dam/Acc/End(17), SynSck-EndMod/+RunSpeed(19) Level 8: Lightning Field -- PwrTrns-EndMod(A), PwrTrns-Dam/Rech(19), PwrTrns-Dam/EndMod(21), PwrTrns-Dam/Acc/End(21), PwrTrns-Dam/Acc/Rech/End(23), PwrTrns-+Heal(23) Level 10: Havoc Punch -- SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg(A), SprBlsWrt-Dmg/Rchg(25), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(25), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(27), SprBlsWrt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(27), SprBlsWrt-Rchg/Dmg%(29) Level 12: Super Jump -- BlsoftheZ-ResKB(A) Level 14: Aim -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(29) Level 16: Build Up -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(31) Level 18: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 20: Force of Thunder -- Prv-Heal(A), Prv-Heal/EndRdx(31), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg(31), Prv-Heal/Rchg(33), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx(33), Prv-Absorb%(33) Level 22: Tough -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(34) Level 24: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(34), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(34) Level 26: Voltaic Sentinel -- ExpRnf-Acc/Rchg(A), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(36), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(36), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(37) Level 28: Thunder Strike -- Arm-Dmg(A), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(37), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Arm-Acc/Rchg(39), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(39), Arm-Dam%(39) Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(40) Level 32: Thunderous Blast -- Rgn-Dmg(A), Rgn-Dmg/Rchg(40), Rgn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Rgn-Acc/Rchg(42), Rgn-Dmg/EndRdx(42), Rgn-Knock%(42) Level 35: Power Sink -- SynSck-EndMod(A), SynSck-Dam/Rech(43), SynSck-EndMod/Rech(43), SynSck-Dam/Rech/Acc(43), SynSck-Dam/Acc/End(45) Level 38: Shocking Grasp -- Hct-Dmg(A), Hct-Dmg/Rchg(45), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46), Hct-Acc/Rchg(46), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx(46), Hct-Dam%(48) Level 41: Static Discharge -- Empty(A) Level 44: Charged Armor -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(45) Level 47: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(48), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(48) Level 49: Tesla Cage -- BslGaz-Acc/Rchg(A), BslGaz-Rchg/Hold(50), BslGaz-Acc/Hold(50), BslGaz-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(50) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 1: Defiance Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A) Level 2: Health -- Pnc-Heal/+End(A), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(7), Pnc-Heal(9), NmnCnv-Heal(9) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(11), EndMod-I(11) Level 1: Quick Form Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon Level 50: Reactive Radial Flawless Interface Level 50: Barrier Core Epiphany Level 50: Melee Core Embodiment ------------

I have found a Weird™. (This is on a freshly downloaded version, right out of the repo today.) On an */elec blaster, take Force of Thunder (the level 20 sustain power). Note that even though it's a self-buff power, there's no option to toggle the power on to show it's effects. Then, slot a self-affecting proc - I used Preventative Medicine. It will now have an option to toggle it on, because of the proc. Do so. Open up the totals window and look at the status tab - you now show as having -2 stun and -2.08 KB protection which are, not coincidentally, what that power applies to enemies. Is this a known issue? I went through the thread but may have missed it. (It does also apply the buff effects to Regen/Recov at the same time, too.)

EDIT: Gah, wrong mids thread. I am fail.

Oh, EM still sucks, it just sucks less than it did. This guy was my first 50 on live, so there's no way I'm going to stop playing this combo. 😄

This would be in the context of rebalancing and tweaking the set, not just stripping out the crash and leaving things alone. Most of the launch era sets badly need a rework, given how much better (and more interesting) the sets that were built later tend to be.

As they work their way through the older sets, hopefully crashing T9s will go away. Because they need to.

Hasten is overpowered, true. It's bad design, true. It is, however, not required to make a viable character in the way that Stamina was, back in the day. Every build *should* take Hasten from a min-maxing perspective, you can still play without it just fine. Therefore, there's no good reason to make it inherent. Some things are eternal. (Besides, I like these threads because my view on Hasten is apparently incomprehensible to plenty of people on both sides.)

If it doesn't make it live, I may cry. Seriously, the idea of being able to play through Praetoria without fighting the urge to claw my eyes out the whole time? Yes please!

No, that's because Mid's holds to the old rules around power slotting, and I couldn't remember the workaround off the top of my head so I didn't put the sixth slot there in the posted build. It's there in game and has been the whole time.😄 I refer you to Bopper's mathposting. It's close enough that I barely notice hasten downtime. I mostly ended up with it in Hasten because there wasn't anywhere else more useful to me - I could have put it as a fourth slot in Weave and picked up a 9% accuracy bonus (I notice your build is *way* short on accuracy, not being able to hit +4s at 100% without the incarnate level shift, which is no bueno, IMO) but it wasn't really compelling. I mean, there's nothing wrong with your build here, but it explicitly goes against why I said I made the build I did. The one you posted would put me back to having the psi-hole that I wanted to get away from, and would drop my damage, regen/max-hp and effective end recovery in order to get more defense that I don't actually need. Having the higher regen on top of the higher psi resist has made such a difference when fighting psi enemies that I've been very happy with my posted build. (Though, admittedly, your significantly higher Melee and AoE defense may cover for that psi weakness, so that's something to consider.) Given that tanks, even after the buffs, still need all the damage they can get, losing out on Musculature in favor of Agility and *still* not getting permahasten out of it sounds like a bad trade. I also question your attack slotting a bit, but that's easily swapped around. Also, I'm never taking Hover on a melee character because I don't like wanting to scoop someone's eyes out with a spoon which is what using flight in melee does to me. (Let's be honest here, Super Jump kicks every other travel power's butt, anyway.)

Your troll game is weak - take more superadine. Hasten is a bad piece of design, and never should have been put in the game. I'll agree with you there. But it is not on the same level as the Fitness pool pre-inherent, where if you didn't take Stamina, you might as well not be playing the game, it was so vital. Hasten is very, very good - too good, in fact. It's also so fundamental to the way the game has been built and balanced that removing it would require a massive rework of at least fifty percent of the powersets in the game (and I'm being insanely conservative here) to ensure they aren't hit too hard by the knock-on effects of the change. Now, the changes proposed to make it into a toggle power earlier in the thread do quite a bit to make Hasten work better in a QoL sense and could maybe cover somewhat for a slight reduction in it's effects, but that's still iffy.

That would require someone to actually use the t9 armors, though.

Yeah, the Hasten as 4th power idea was mostly me thinking through "what if this was being designed from scratch?" since there's not a chance in hell it gets implemented that way. Either that or it should come out of speed entirely and be part of some sort of "self-enhancement" pool. Put things like a version of Assault that doesn't suck and maybe a debuff resist power, all of them with hefty end costs. . .

With the upcoming SO drop changes, doing the low level hazard zones might become a decent way to level again, so anything that makes them more useful/relevant would be nice. Adding additional story arcs there would be great.

Like I said, I'd absolutely prefer it to a heavy-handed nerf of hasten. In fact, if Hasten had been originally designed something along these lines, with some sort of balancing drawback/investment cost - maybe with Hasten as the top power in Speed so it requires significant investment, or perhaps with a global endurance cost debuff to offset it's power, then I would say it wasn't badly designed at all. Pushing it up to the fourth power as a toggle (which, of course, requires that the other powers be made to not suck) would make it like Weave, vital to some builds, useful to others. And since you wouldn't need to build huge amounts of other global recharge to get Hasten on permanently, then you can tune how much recharge fits your particular AT/powerset. It's really starting to grow on me as an idea, though revamping the order of powers in Speed is probably going to bring out the "but but but COTTAGE RULE" hordes. 😄

And that's perfectly reasonable. But you have to acknowledge that a build with Hasten is going to be more powerful in general than one without it, because Hasten is really that good. (Which is bad design - it's not on the level of the old fitness pool, where if you didn't take Stamina you might as well just not play, but it's crazy the force multiplier you get from a single pool power.)

Sure, I can paste in plain text - but I can't view what is already in the message in plain text. So, for example, I can't copy and paste the quote box with your reply to me into another message - which is the sort of thing that can be very useful when editing a post, where you want to respond to something that was posted while you were putting together your post, or just when you don't want to have to fight with the stupid drag and drop rich-text box for quotes, or when you want to add something before a quote box, etc.

Nah, just remove the crashing T9 powers and replace them with something good instead.