Bopper

At a minimum, I 4-slot DF with the regular procs (1 slow, 3 holds, all 3.5 ppm). If I want to be more AoE damage focused, I'll add the purple hold proc (4.5 ppm), otherwise, I slot that into suppressive fire for ST damage. I usually run out of slots but I'm not against 6 slotting for set bonuses, if you like those options. Remember you can reduce the recharge of the power and it won't impact the procs in DF since it's a pseudo pet. As for a build, I'll find one when I get home and post it. I'm honestly always tweaking things, so I should ask how do you want to play and ill post one that matches (solo? Team? Single target? AoE? Etc?)

Yes in the sense it's a sustained fight and the extra dps is not wasted on overkill (like one shotting minions). But -resist debuffs help everywhere, technically speaking.

I agree with this. I asked the GM why we can't JUST do this. It won't pigeonhole tankers into needing to use their weakest attack in their attack chains and could offer a means of applying bruising in AoEs. That is a significant boost for solo and teams that's not overkill. Oh well, instead we are getting 6 or so different fixes. If I had to choose which changes I'd like to see implemented, I would just want the increased taunt cap (not aggro, but targets affect by taunt), increased damage cap, and my suggested minor tweak to bruising. The increased damage modifier is fine too, I suppose, but the AoE mechanic is a bit much. Also the endurance buff is unnecessary if we are buffing the damage. As it is now, I hardly recognize the archetype. It feels like we now have 3 Brute ATs: Brute, Offensive Brute (Scrapper), and Defensive Brute (Tank). Not very interesting.

That is certainly true. However trying to read the combat log on my 4 inch screen with mediocre internet connectivity would make that a chore to work out. Especially for each build. Thanks for including it, it's a helpful best practice when tracking these things. I hope others will include their's as well when reporting their test results.

Special request, but if anyone posts a pylon kill time, can you also provide what your attack chain was? I'd like to use that for comparison purposes.

They count as a recharge enhancement, which lowers the probability of your procs triggering. You can read about it in the Procs Per Minute Information Guide in the Guides Forum (also, link is in my signature block). There you will find the formulas that explain this.

Check out the Proc Per Minute Information Guide on the Guide Forums (it's in my signature as well). The formulas are there.

Not to mention, that same combo also provides a team buff of +44.6% to hit (assuming you don't slot tohit mods in farsight, which I don't). Makes for hitting +4 enemies trivial.

True. I can softcap an entire team using Clarion+Power Boost+Farsight. I just tell teammates to stay close to me and I tank, using Time's Juncture as extra cushion (never know when defense debuffs happen).

They are different. Crushing blow is the fastest animation that starts momentum (2s cast time, 2.244s arcanatime). It also has the least different between slow animation versus fast animation (2s slow cast, 1.2s fast cast). So if you're looking to minimize wasted animation, crushing blow is probably your best bet.

I am not talking about stackable at all. I'm talking about allowing any attack to apply Bruising. Subsequent attacks would just refresh its duration, and AoE attacks will apply Bruising on each target hit. As we have it now, the weakest attack power (typically single target) is the only way to apply bruising, making it a limitation for tank effectiveness. My suggestion opens up that effectiveness without patching 5 or so different things.

I agree on not allowing it to be stackable. But why not allow Bruising work on all powers? Tanks can optimize their attack chains without having to use their T1, and Bruising could be applied on entire mobs with AoE, benefiting the entire team. It's not world breaking, and it's easier than tweaking the entire construct of tanks.

Are you going to fly and stay at range, or will you be ground based - potentially getting charged by enemies? If you can potentially get swarmed, you can think of Blackstar as a nothing to lose grenade. Hope they die, or get debuffed enough to not hit you as often. Keep in mind, you are Storm/Dark. You can stealth into a mob, pop Blackstar, and everyone you hit will have their ToHit floored. So you can easily run in, pop them, turn on snow storm, drop a freezing rain and just have at it. You should have no problems surviving, especially since you will mitigate any alpha attack with the tohit debuff from blackstar.

For someone who has theory crafted a TW build but has not yet made one, can someone explain to me something about Momentum? I want to know, if you activate Momentum, does it refresh the 5 second timer on Momentum when you use one of the momentum starter attacks, or do you have to wait until momentum wears off, then reapply Momentum with a slow attack? Thanks,

I have no experience with ACT. I'm a simpleton with this stuff. I simply use the combat log (with time stamps) and open it up with excel. I'm curious to see the standardization they're doing. Hopefully I can write a parsing tool for it. But I digress.

Two questions, Are cones supposed to get a range increase (the wording in the notes made me think cones get am arc increase and spheres get a radius increase)? Are pool powers supposed to be impacted by a tanker's inherent, or should the inherent only work on primary/secondary powers?

Thanks for the guide, this was info I've been wanting to track down. I was hoping to see the formulas exactly, but I imagine when I open your spreadsheet, I'll get them from there.

You can think of having 90% resistance with 0% defense as being the same as having 0% resistance with 45% defense. In the 1st case, you get hit 50% of the time but only take 10% of damage. So on average you take 5% damage from each attack. In the 2nd case, you get hit 5% of the time, but take 100% of the damage. So on average you take 5% of the damage. If you can cap both resistance and defense, you will take on average 0.5% of the damage. God mode. Can't do better than that. Overall, you should ask yourself how much damage do you want to take on average, then aim for a combination of resistance and defense that can achieve that number. I provide the formula below. % average damage = (1 - Resistance/100%) × (0.50 - Defense/100%) × 100% Now, I am not factoring in anything else that could prove useful. Adding HP is similar to adding resistance (takes longer to kill you). Applying debuffs can act as forms of resistance (-damage debuff) or defense (-to hit debuff). So factor that in too, if you like.

+damage. Not a damage proc.

You can get 43% resistance to psionic damage from IOs. 5x Impervium (+30), 1 Aegis (+5), 1 Shield Wall (+5), 1 Reactive Defenses (+3, minimum). The tanker ATO proc can increase resistance (I assume all damage). Also, if you're willing to 6 slot resistance, you can get another 22.5% from Set Bonuses.

I also am not too familiar with blasters, so I can't offer much advice. But overall it seems like a fun combo. You get 3 cones (2 from dark, 1 from MM), you get lots of PBAoE (which isn't ideal for a squishy, but with all the -toHit and -recharge you can probably mitigate a lot of incoming damage). So overall, I think there's some synergy there and I think you can have multiple playstyles in a single build which can be fun.

For Blasters, Leviathan and Soul Mastery each have 2 cones. Also Sonic Blast comes with 3 cones (although one of them is a fairly weak sleep power, but you can proc it out). Dark Blast for Defenders/Corruptors has 3 cone powers.

Mids is wrong in their proc calculations. They'll fix it someday.

Has anyone actually been testing this and providing feedback to the devs, or has the entire 25 pages of comments been debate on the power changes? I am tempted to suggest a GM move this conversation to Suggestions and Feedback, and have them start this topic over with folks who will actually test the new mechanics.

The resistance part does not matter, but the levels do. I forget the exact number for the Bruising debuff, but let's say it's 20%. That is 20% more damage done on the target by the team that otherwise would not be there, even when factoring in the resistances of the enemy (I can show you the math if you would like, but I assume you are aware of this already). Now levels do come into play (purple patch for the loss). If you are facing a +4 enemy, that resistance debuff is reduced (to what, I don't recall). Let's say it's only 10%. That's still 10% more damage the team does on that target. Even that is a fairly significant buff, especially since it affects both regular damage and proc damage.