siolfir

Melee cones aren't affected by range (they get an arc bonus from the Tanker inherent unless otherwise specified in the power description, though). The entry in City of Data for Crowd Control, for example, shows that it doesn't benefit from either - and the Notes in the description also say as much: Compare to Shatter, which doesn't prevent the arc from expanding:

They weren't.

The Stalker changes were live before it went down, so there weren't any changes to mention beyond some powerset proliferation. Don't like it? Play a Stalker.

The same merit as there is in not allowing mez protection for some ATs on most missions against most groups, but that discussion belongs, as you said, in its own thread. I also took the same thing from the Rune of Protection discussion, which is that the devs want mez to have a place in the game, but I also don't feel that it should only apply to certain ATs. Also, inspirations can be combined and/or emailed to yourself - it's pretty hard to run out of Break Frees when you're only using them in rare encounters against specific groups while using some armor sets in the ATs that have them (not specifically melee ATs, either - see: Sentinels). Edit to add: and all of that said, it doesn't matter what any of the players in this thread say - as I said in another recent thread in this section, it's up to the devs, and they're the ones you need to convice. But given how the RoP conversation went, I don't see this one being a likely change.

That's a good thing to remember, but the best thing to remember is that you want a layered defense: the best performance is from the sets that mix defense, resistance, and either absorb, regeneration, or healing (preferably all) to take care of/ignore the hits that get do through. The rest of your post is accurate enough, but telling them to remember that resistance always works? I find that a bit misleading. Here's why: A pure resistance set is only consistent until the debuffs start piling on: getting hit with defense debuffs means that 50% chance for even-con minions (higher for higher ranks or levels) to hit turns into the 95% cap really quickly, effectively doubling the damage you take. Cascade defense failure is talked about with defense sets that aren't Super Reflexes, but it affects resistance sets more often because they're more likely to get hit by the debuffs - including resistance debuffs - in the first place. That's why in AFK performance tests, which really just count how often you take damage and how much you take while just sitting there, resistance sets fall to the bottom while defense sets are in the middle, and layered sets (Stone) including the ones with lesser numbers that scale to enemies around them (Willpower, Invulnerability, Bio*) are at the top: you can compensate for this using other powers, adding some other layers through IOs and/or other powers, or using the in-set heals that every "pure" resistance set has. * - yes, even without all the clicks, Bio performs well; on SOs I was going AFK in efficient mode on a Brute against +3/x8 in the mid 30s

If you don't like , there's always or . Those would require teaming, though, so... As far as the ideas, if you're going to add Fear protection to everything then why have any holes in any defense sets? Yes, protection could be added to Tactics but that power already does a lot, Fear doesn't actually prevents from ever attacking, and as you mention it provides resistance to shorten the duration already. A new pool power in Presence wouldn't work, it would have to be added to an existing power or replace one that's there; of those the only self-affecting power is Unrelenting. Sure, you could add it there - and it fits the idea - but it would be available less often than a Break Free drop so would it really matter? As for Fear protection in IOs... I can easily say that from a player's perspective I would much rather have hold, stun, and sleep protection before fear protection but I'm pretty sure those are all off the table based on how the discussion around Rune of Protection turned out.

The original quoted post didn't even mention MoITF, it was soloing +4/x8 (BillZ brought up MoITF in the reply). So you could use the safer strategies you list off or just say heck with it; it's just a matter of patience if you're allowed to use inspirations and deaths don't cause a failure. Also, while I haven't specifically tried it, Water Blast should be able to light up Slick Arrow also: Steam Spray deals Fire damage.

Just use Afterburner, then. It takes the same sets.

Eh... with Electric Armor? Depends on if you used Power Surge or not. Or I guess damage patches, but those aren't combined with a lot of immobilizes when they show up. It's a bit more detrimental to squishies, depending on how much defense they added to the build - which is why I got in the habit of taking Combat Jumping all the time early on and just really never looked back.

No special resistance or protection to knock effects, and honestly the engine seems to get them stuck for longer than most models in my experience making them more vulnerable than they should be despite not having a specific weakness to it by the numbers. Whoever handled how PhysX behaved with them may have had a specific hatred of their behavior, maybe? 😆

I had considered a Spines/Stone just to use Slow Poke for a name. Decided against it, because one Stone Armor character in the NCSoft days was enough.

I agree that the damage on WH is lackluster - even buffed from what it was - and Ball Lightning is nice but does a lot of its damage as DoT ticks, so it's not going to pick up the slack immediately. Throw in the lack of a damage aura to finish off things at a sliver of health and I think you're better off using that plan on a different combo, using your plan to remold for ST damage to focus on what these sets do well, but if you can afford it do so on a second build because Judgement is still out there waiting to plug AoE holes on any build.

59%, but that also assumes no +to-hit buffs on the mobs. Did anyone else read the OP in a TTS voice, or was it just me? Edit to add: Since I just realized that nobody referenced it, a good place for the OP to look for a more detailed explanation is the Attack Mechanics section in the wiki, and the linked Defense page that explains that the highest defense is used so you don't need to worry about melee, ranged, and aoe defense if all the types are covered.

/bind shift+lbutton "powexecname teleport"

Are we getting superpowers from cereal now? 😁 Special K ... as in Ketamine, so not cereal so much. At least they didn't go for the obvious "your mom" joke. (repost: had to fix the quote chain)

So would I, thus the part of the post saying "devs hate scrappers less than stalkers" instead of "devs love scrappers." 🤪

That was one of the complaints about the changes to Rooted, too. But oddly, now you can jump with it. Was it specifically a dev that said it was too thematic? That's who you need to convince, not the rest of us plebs.

It should be fine, I play every single-target-heavy build like a Stalker: the goal is to erase the largest target and move to the next largest before all the AoE takes care of the minions and lieutenants in general situations, or to one-shot troublesome lieutenants/minions before they get a chance to act and then move on to the largest target if you're dealing with something that has them. EM, as a set, is built like a general Stalker primary: you get two hard-hitting attacks (three for Stalker EM, but the general case is AS + heavy hitter from the original melee set), limited AoE, and attack chain filler that makes up most of your DPS. Before the initial nerf, when Brutes got 3% damage per point of Fury and Stalkers still had a 0.9 modifier, my EM Brute would routinely hit Energy Transfer harder than a Stalker would hit with Assassin's Strike from hide.

You're welcome for the link, but I just use it all the time - @UberGuy is the one that put it together and who really deserves thanks. You can see this on CoD also - restrictions on powers show up when you hover over the icons: Peacebringer_Blaster_Mode and Peacebringer_Tanker_Mode are internal names for Nova and Dwarf. Since it's disallowed in those modes, it doesn't work. I don't remember it ever working in forms, either, but my memory has gotten pretty bad.

Would have to be +def(all) since I'm typically not hit by the mob I just placated (unless it's an EB - Placate magnitude needs to be higher so it can affect them) and not many attacks are flagged as AoE. A really short duration (3-5 seconds, enough time to get another attack off / past the interrupt of a slow AS for traditionalists) +30% def(all) would probably add it into a lot of builds, if for no other reason than a LotG mule if it took defense sets.

Yep. It's also +energy (useless, you're over cap anyway) / +negative energy (not useless) / end drain (probably useless due to cap) resistance.

To be fair, they were buffed some (on both ATs) when scrappers got a chance at it compared to it only being on stalkers. ET having critical damage, even reduced, and a heal is much nicer than just not taking damage plus they un-nerfed the stun percentages. Conclusion: devs hate scrappers less than stalkers (as if Ninjitsu wasn't the most egregious example).

Council Robot Resistance: 50% lethal, 60% psi... -15% smashing (love them on SS).

Yes. It's a convenience fee, and you still have to buy enhancements to put into new slots, but if you have the inf to spare and don't want to spend time replacing/combining them all it's pretty convenient.