Frostweaver

I still demand mace for Stalkers, because WM/EA on stalkers would be stronger and prettier than brutes could ever hope for.

Not really, I am just sorta lazy. Keeping track of buttons you have to push when they expire sorta sucks. so if I am using a set that having something 'perma-able', like +hp, mez protections, or something else that greatly enhances your survivability, I'd rather use my auto on that than hasten. Also, some melee sets, especially for tankers, don't profit much from hasten... the difference between a 4 second recharge and a 4.5 second recharge is pretty negligible. I'd rather slot for global recharge, and the only builds that I feel truly profit from hasten are the ones that have very good long-recharge abilities that cannot be made perma or faster any other way. I usually will put hasten in blast sets to push their nuke frequency (except dp/water/archery) or in like... electric melee when I have both lightning rod and spring attack that, with hasten, can be useful multiple times in a fight. also, some single-target sets are very very useful as proc monsters when your primary doesn't need any help and your attacks profit more from global recharge to enable better proc firing. But yeah, in the end it's mostly about where I can be laziest and still be a killing/damage soaking machine. Some sets, where hasten is an 'option' rather than perma, I will go ahead and slot it in while leaving the actual necessity on auto... Like ice armor, I LOVE the massive HP buff from hoarfrost and I am used to slotting in other emergency heals... but I might throw in hasten so I can occasionally remember to click it to bring up energy absorption or hibernate or secondary/pool abilities faster... but I am not going to DIE if they are not up at maximum speed.

I had it for a while, and figured out how to leverage it at the beginning of the fight, but found that it meant I had to go in without shield drone, Phantasm, and PA to make it effective before I killed most of the stuff... and I was rushed to get out my traps and pets. It was really only useful when I was specifically hunting solo AV's and GM's, and even then it was of limited utility. trip mines also has the same problem but is marginally more useful IN the fight... although I still don't use it much on high-level groups because even with capped defenses there are enough auras, stray aggro, and aoe's flying around that it is very often interrupted. I still have it for the big monster fights, but when marauder wastes 3 seconds of your animation with a hand clap, that is 3 seconds I COULD have been using to smack him in the face with uninterruptible powers or summoning more traps... and being that close means mezzes, and mezzes suck, even for illusion.

I do not disagree, not unless his character is level 13 hopping around peregrine randomly healing poorly-built defenders who are fighting huge hordes of Nemesis and malta. And yes, I said that from experience 🙂 tried it about half an hour ago. fully stealthed lowbie empath just for fits and giggles. The defender took off, and I was dead almost instantly. Heals definitely cause minor aggro... I still don't know if they break stealth, but when you have aggro stealth is irrelevant anyway.

Healing? Experimentation? after all, every tanker should pretend to be a support toon... hehe. Seriously, though, I tend to try to avoid hasten if it's at all possible... especially after the SS rage change which makes doublestacking more painful in comparison, but that's much harder on brutes who focus on a few, rapid aoe attacks because an aoe attack chain is so much more effective for brutes at holding aggro and keeping mobs close than 'wasting' a slot on taunt in their already-tight build. Whacking something in the face with a stone hammer on a tanker, though, taunts the other stuff around it and keep them in the radius of my aoe's much more effectively. Which means the bosses die at around the same speed as the luts and minions... So I may not kill all the minions and luts as quickly, but the end result is close to the same thing as I fill my attack chain with ST attacks for each of the bosses that the brute would keep using aoe's on after everything else is dead. End result-fairly similar clear speeds. As a tanker I don't NEED those secondary attackers dead right away (and with /shield I'd rather they survive to the end of the fight anyway) because I easily capped my resists and defense against them and have healing, regen, and attack speed/damage debuffs to spare. End result? I really like stacking weaken and melt armor? I have room to try that and I suddenly have sentinel-level -resists. Aid self helps my dull pain in keeping my HP topped off? No problems. heck, I even tried out unrelenting instead of hibernate on an ice tanker the other day, and it worked out much, much better than I had hoped... 4 slotting glimpse of the abyss gave me some very nice bonuses, as an ice tanker I don't really need a full taunt and so provoke was perfect to catch strays and slot mocking beratement, and unrelenting was a surprisingly effective 'oh crap, cascade' without losing aggro... and a brute would never have the freedom to try that.

You are quite welcome.

Unless you are AFK farming, specialty farming brutes are simply about 20-30% faster in the end, Sometimes more. Afk Farming.... well... who cares if brutes or tankers are faster? Brutes are, but it doesn't really matter since you only check in occasionally, and both can LIVE through it and cause passive damage just fine. Functionally you may as well consider them the same speed, since those are the only two good afk farmers anyway. On Farming TEAMS where you actively farm with multiple people and inspiration drops can become scarce, between 3-5 people tankers perform the same as brutes, while at 2 or less or 6 or more brutes BARELY edge out tankers... although tanker taunts can help the squishies survive better and potentially increase aoe dps. I am kind of a huge farming fan, with lots of builds and a vested interest in measuring and tweaking their performance 😛

Not really yet, but a good rule of thumb is that any primary that offers extra damage in the form of auras, damage buffs, or extra attacks and offers the ability to cap certain defense/resistances and stack mitigation types can farm effectively, and any secondary that offers solid aoe can as well. Any tanker primary that can offer high defense/resistances or multiple mitigation types can pve effectively as can pretty much EVERY secondary. In my opinion, there is only one primary that does not PVE as well as the rest but makes up for it with incredible farming ability (although, as a tanker, you can make it work) which is fire, a few primaries which work well as solo content runners, farmers, or super-tough dps adds but not quite as well as team PvE tankers like willpower, bio, and shield (but again, as a tanker, you can make them work), and a few primaries which are outstanding in teams and nearly unkillable but do not add very much to farming like stone, invulnerability, and SR. And then there's Rad, electric, ice, and Dark, which, while they have their own minor problems, are decent in pretty much all areas as farmers, PvE runners, team tankers, and dps adds, but are not really specialists in anything but being incredibly hard to kill with a good build, and can add a little to all areas. Primary-wise, Energy, Martial arts, battle axe, psi, ice, katana, and kinetic are considered lower performers than the rest or are particularly weak against certain enemies, but offer decent secondary mitigation effects that help team tankers much more than farmers. or special ST effects that help defeat hard targets (dark is sort of in that category too, but is no longer a secondary performer even though it's aoe is still slightly lower than others) spines, Claws, savage, radiation, and electric all offer outstanding farming utility while only slightly losing utility in pVe (although tanker builds can generally counteract this effect) so They are considered the top farmers. And then there are solid middle-of-the-road sets like Mace, Staff, broadsword, super strength, and fire melee which offer decent abilities with both PvE and farming, but are not really specialists. And then there is TW, which is amazing in all areas IF you can tolerate a very concentration-intensive mechanic and strong motivations to avoid pool powers which make some of the OTHER sets perform at a similar level. It has it's own strengths and weknesses, which require a completely separate guide to explain, although in the end, despite many people's opinions, it's limitations balance it's dps potential fairly well (On tankers... on scrappers it is a whole different story). It is a bit of a category-breaker, though.

Ignore the line. Claws on Tankers and SS on Tankers are darned close to brute numbers at 70% fury when you factor in their innate dps bonuses due to follow up and rage, and extra damage bonuses have a much greater effect on tankers than brutes until you actually get close to damage cap, where Tankers cap at around 85% of Brute's cap. Also the Tanker's increased cone and aoe sizes and caps are especially visible in Claws, leading to a higher AOE damage potential despite the lower individual damage. @Zeraphia did not mention it, but this is also true for TW and savage as well, although it is less visible and requires more carefully laid out attack chains. Everything is easier and offers more build flexibility on a tanker, basically, and claws and SS are outliers that really display this. But go ahead and poke fun at someone not strictly following unwritten forum traditions. That's always helpful.

Because Tankers are the ones still standing after a team wipe. When they feel no sense of responsibility for being a failure as a 'tanker', they tend to falsely perceive their incompetence as brilliance or 'skizzils' rather than the reality that the AT is simply built to survive ANYTHING. Even most 'bad builds' can survive crap that will floor pretty much every other AT. Any Tanker can survive anything. A Competent tanker can survive anything and keep the teammates that stay near them alive at the same time. A GOOD tanker can keep themselves and their close teammates alive AND minimize their damage by positioning, optimize teams aoe's by staying near cap, and gathering strays or focussing efforts on especially troublesome enemies. a GREAT Tanker can do all that PLUS communicate and keep their team informed about the flow of the tasks and act in a leadership role, and a superb Tanker does all that and can recognize or compensate for massive weaknesses through tactics, or kicking that weakness off the team.

Congratulations, you learned how to take screenshots and use the costume creator. Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. The problem is there are so many Secret Kings like you that are convinced they are clever and funny. It's not even aggravating anymore, it's simply tiring. Giving out bad or ridiculous advice and then pretending it was all a joke when someone notices, just like every.other.one. Chilling Embrace is Ice Armor's best ability. -32% recharge and -14% damage is a good, solid, third of their mitigation. It is so good at grabbing aggro that not even a chain-blasting fire blaster or any brutes can peel the enemy off. Sure, you can run a pure-melee-pool blaster. You can run fire armor and not bother with burn, or a PA-free illusion controller. Heck, I have a semi-petless MM that I used as a challenge build that double stacks Gang War and relies on traps to do MOTF's. The game is easy enough that weird and stupid ideas CAN be made semi-successful. But that does not make them good, clever, or worthwhile ideas. It just makes stupid things possible as 'challenge builds'. Bragging rights? sure. Good ideas? No. If your tanker needs an extra 3% defense to cap your defenses, or needs the extra slot to add an extra 10% recharge from one more LOTG proc, or wants an extra defense power after already slotting 5 LOTG's in order to get a special set bonus or free up a set defense power for 6 slotting red fortune or reactive defenses, Maneuvers is a fantastic idea. against +3 enemies going from 52% defense to 55% defense, or offsetting praetorian, cimeroran, or CoT earth thorn debuffs, maneuvers is a fantastic idea. A good builder knows to look at many possible options to optimize his utility.

If the question was not obvious enough, I was hoping someone had already tried so I wouldn't have to blow off a respec or waste the time respeccing on test when I am off. I am at work, and sometimes like poking around with builds and stuff while I am working.

uh... no? I was a level 50 fire control/radiation dominator, hopping around the hollows badging while I was having a debate about Darwin's theory of natural selection in general chat and waiting to get my hollows timed badge, something I missed levelling up because I ran DFB's for the first 12 levels instead of the hollows arc. I had stealth from the concealment pool and a stealth IO in sprint active, and was perma-dommed, and I noticed a level 5 ninja blade/something stalker or scrapper, I think, getting gang-banged by a bunch of trolls on 'troll hill'. So when I hit the ground I quickly popped him with my incredibly crappy 'aid other' heal that I took to open a slot for 'aid self' and kept in my 'weird and temporary powers' bar alongside the anti-undead shotgun and croatoa Longbow and iron sword reward powers. I noticed he used... umm... slice, I think, or maybe flashing steel, right after I healed him. I got involved in the discussion again and after a few moments a pack of like 8 level 5-6 trolls and for some weird reason a lost blaster wandered over and tried to beat on me. I had no auras on and nothing but a heal SO slotted in my aid other, and noticed the poor stalker was dead and half of these little guys had some damage on them. And I remembered that in the distant past, when I used to play ill/rad, the same thing generally happened when I randomly healed someone while I had super invis turned on. Not sure where you got the story you just said, though... Not one of those details was in anything I said. Are you trying to be funny, or are you really tired, or do you always come up with weird crap like that to troll with?

@Darkir Well, you have certainly made me want to try a build with both weaken AND melt armor. Not this particular one, since I simply do not LIKE brute Fire melee and think shields is weaksauce on brutes (for obvious, fury-and-autocombining-reds reasons, the same reasons I don't care for brute musculature) but on a set with REAL AOE and decent single like savage/rad or WM/EA, I could see using both approaches could dramatically improve both teaming and ST experience, and they both stack (which rocks) As far as the build is concerned, I figured it was probably pretty obvious that GFS is slotted ONLY for the 1.88 defense, although to be fair, I could have slotted the set into kick just as easily and saved a power slot, with a lot more incentive to use Kick and get the FF proc, but kick is such a bloody fast attack that my first thought was to avoid slotting a recharge-boosting set into it. My goal was to get as much recharge and defense as possible to get close to the Incarnate cap +3 with Agility, without using hasten. Of course, I did not consider that doing DA solo at more than +0 was really, really dumb, and that in an Itrial you ALWAYS have at least a 10% defense bonuses unless you run off to solo. Then again, if it WAS shifted to Kick, You could re-slot Unleash potential with a recharge, and UP every 300 seconds is pretty darned powerful when paired opposite the other 'oh crap' powers.

I have two traps masterminds, one of which is a 'challenge build' semi-petless double gang war, and the other one is a beasts/traps mastermind. I have never taken detonator with either build, because even though the damage is staggering for an MM, I despise the idea of purposefully sacrificing a pet and franken-6-slotting it with cranked up recharge is the only way to get real use out of it. The question is this... Can detonator be used on semi-henchmen like traps pets, gang war or soul extraction? or is it strictly for controllable henchmen?

Exactly, I used to LOVE Triage beacon, but now? with my thugs/traps it is an absolute waste of a slot. Rebirth core is incredibly useful, does it a thousand times better, and what kind of crazy person would exemplar into something that their pets cannot survive easily? This is uninformed. The only time you turn up non-ae content is to prove a challenge. You NEVER turn up exemplar content unless you are an idiot, youtuber, challenge farmer, or farming debt badges. High level content is a breeze with rebirth core. Traps is a non-heal set post proc changes. I wish that were otherwise, but to be fair, a better heal would make an already-incredible set brutally overpowered and a nerf magnet...in fact, it was one of the reasons proc firing was nerfed. The only time triage beacon is even remotely useful is when A. You screw up badly, lost all your pets, all your teammates, and the only one beating on +4 romulus is the stone tanker while you try to clear up a party wipe. B. You are specifically in a rikti invasion or mothership raid. (meanwhile a quarter of the raid is popping everyone to full health every 1.2 seconds) C. You are soloing an AV (instead of an EB) and you aren't using the rest of your set to make the fight go faster, you have a crappy build, AND you don't have a clue what MM commands actually do. D. you are trying to do a Crazy challenge, and your build is specially tuned for that purpose. You succeed in the challenge, but your build is almost useless for general utility or playing for anyone else. Not many people are trying to do a MOITF with a petless mastermind solo at boosted mob mez within 1 hour 45 minutes. Your build can do it with triage beacon and double gang war. great. No one else can do it right now, or they simply don't care enough to try. Hold that medal proudly (I actually have that medal) you will be unchallenged for a LONG time. Nope, not going to pick a power that is only useful for those three situations that never happen. EVERY set has a few crap powers... even Time. Be happy that a set with the godlike strength of Traps has only two. Note: You seriously should reconsider the personal insults. No one here cares about the size of your e-peen

well, if it doesn't break hide, please let me know. I DO know it causes aggro, though. tested by healing a newbie in the hollows who was fighting a horde of trolls, died, and the trolls came right after me despite having concealment active. And healing causes aggro in pretty much every MMO in existence. Unfortunately, unlike stalker and bane stealth, it's sometimes difficult to tell when concealment or invisibility is broken. (especially if you are a level 50 in a level 10 zone waiting for your hollows badge)

proc slotting the aoe on a brute? Sure, for +self buffs, but superior avalanche is, IMO. a better choice if it gets you closer to caps. all those procs will maybe affect one or two targets, and while I agree with force feedback, the rest usually only works in mid's. I really do not understand your slotting, @Darkir, usually you produce outstanding ideas, so I will just.... show my version instead, and let @Washuchan figure out what he wants. First Off, weaken is vastly more kickass than Melt armor. Both is awesome, but if you have to pick one, pick Weaken. Secondly, Fire melee ON BRUTES is a single target beast. but having a bit of extra AoE is okay if you want to farm a little... but I'd rather overcap a bit so DA content doesn't hurt so much. DA uses all three positionals like... constantly, but fortunately they are mostly S/L. One with the shield gives you the occasional emergency downtime without too much pain, and ball lightning gives you a bigger radius to catch all those bastards that are hard to clump up, and also the slotting option to add the extra spike to overcap ranged defense. Stealth is moved so you can stealth early exemplared missions, rather than Super speed, and your aoe attack chain is small, but useable without hasten, so you can auto active defense instead. Ageless will tighten it up nicely. Plus, if you need a bit of extra mitigation, stomp will knock everything down and has a decent radius. tactics keeps you from getting smoked, And yeah, your single-target chain is sick. Fire sword is a 150 dps taunt mule. keep kick on your bar, but you don't have to use it very often...but when you do, it can give you a recharge boost. Note, because of your innate damage boosts from Fury and against all odds, Musculature provides very little benefit when a couple of reds can cap you. Agility, however, tightens up your aoe attack chain, improves your endurance, and drags your defense even closer to Itrial softcap territory. Also, I hate narrow long-range cones on brutes. I know breath of fire is a good AOE attack, but all the lost single target attacks and other complications to use it, INCLUDING the fact that you have to step away from a spawn and LOSE your against all odds damage bonus, make it a non-starter. well, anyway. Here's the build. use it or dissect it or steal it or whatever you want.

Correction, anything under Elite bosses. Elite bosses have enough staying power in most cases (except the incredibly fragile ones in AE customs and very low-level missions) to allow BR to pull ahead.

You have never played an ice tanker, or if you have, you have never done it in a team without a pocket emp or buffer. You have no idea how to hold aggro or protect a team. Please let me know who your 'tankers' are and what server you play on so that I can make sure that I NEVER make the mistake of inviting one of them to a team and expect them to actually tank. This is the worst and most ill-informed set of opinions I have seen on these forums in a LONG time. End of story.

it causes aggro and breaks invisibility if you hit anyone with it. But in general, your teammates are going to be causing a lot MORE aggro than you are.

Yes. However. PA causes a Lot MORE aggro, so in general they should help keep aggro off you.

well, the best thing about Ice armor on a scrapper is the fact that the enemies don't get to run away that easily. everything else, the minute they miss you a few times and you debuff them, they make tracks like their butt is on fire.... but ice armor? It's like they are trying to moon you but cannot find their zipper.

*sigh* ditched magic fly. put on giant rockets to cover up small longbow jetpack. I couldn't ignore the power of perma-hasten on a proc build, especially since master brawler doesn't require my auto power like practiced brawler would. Feeling a little defeated about it, though, and now I am gonna HAVE to get ageless and assault core :P. yeah, it makes aimed overcharge hit for 1000 points every 20 seconds, but it still feels a little like a failure.

That's kinda how it went with me too. I probably 'overconsidered' achilles, because I didn't want to blow off stacks like that, but it's really not that reliable on overcharge. The explosive Strike IS force feedback, apparently I was slightly asleep when I put it in there 😛 So, I checked out swapping overcharge and piercing beam slotting, and then... pulled ragnarok out completely and replaced it with Positron. performance improved, which is...always interesting. and yeah, pulled the pvp chance for lethal out of refractor in favor of achille's heel, mostly because lethal since it is so often resisted was the LEAST damaging proc I could pull. And yeah, without hasten it is definitely part of my ST rotation.... I was testing it on an EB AE map to get a good idea of it's abilities, and using defeat times as the metric at +4/4. I know that it's probably not terribly neccessary, but I LIKE having the power transfer and entropic chaos heals slotted in there... Helps keep my HP firmly around 55%, which is Ideal. I did take your advice about slotting better proc magic into charged shot, pulling the resist out of tough (since SR caps your resist anyway) and adding a force feedback and explosive strike. I also pulled the third red fortune out of weave and added some boosters to come close to defense cap, and put the bombardment fire into piercing beam... There was a definite second or two speed up. Achilles and annihalation still only apply about one in three times on refractor, but the -res factor is still pretty brutal and with 5 ST attacks applying (with disintegrate) 300-400 points each in the attack chain, EB's faceplant faster than on any blaster or brute I have ever played. I haven't tried soloing a GM yet, but... with regular -250 regen, 50%+ -resist, and an average of sick DPS I am going to have to try... This thing could rival my ill/traps if I can survive the return fire, and with your tweak suggestions I am DEFINITELY going to have to do another Pylon test. Thanks, Man. Quick question- I REALLY despise cutting beam, despite it being a 'valuable' aoe. Do you think it would profit me to pull it, stuff opstrikes into lancer, and put in hasten? I tried to avoid it to this point, but more and more I am trying to max procs, which means deemphasizing recharge enhancement bonuses and emphasizing global instead... I would lose entropic's 'free' heals (which worries me) but I frankly cannot think of anyplace else to put hasten without ditching flight, which is kind of a concept-killer for me (Even though I know jetpacks are cheap). If I lose too much -res or aoe from bailing it though, I will just bite the bullet and chance my costume to hide a mini pack 😞 of course, effectiveness wise adding another annihalation and achilles would, I guess, give even more opportunities to stick the -resist...