KaizenSoze

More advanced difficultly thoughts for other TFs. ITF: Glue bombs or nets to down fliers Shield charge for Roman bosses Call of Hades for upgraded EB that rez all nearby mobs Bull rush for Minotaurs aka Savage Leap Switch the surgeons from empathy to nature for better buffing Cyclopes get an AOE hurl boulder Romulus Augustus gets a judgement, either Void, Ion, or Mighty

Take this from someone who doesn't think Tesla Cage is all that great. Making these kinds of absolute statements does not help your argument. I think TS is not mandatory, I can build strong sappers with continuous attack chains w/o it. Even though the devs obviously want players to take it. As I said before, if they would counterintuitively raise the recharge it would proc better or add damage or lengthen the chain jumps so it would hit more targets. I think it needs some tweaking, but it's not garbage.

Not exactly a combo. Purely ranged Night Widow. Very durable, would take forever to kill anything marginally tough. Sentinels would point and laugh.

Interface is the only dog of the group. Judgement especially Ion is ridiculously overpowered. Lore can be very useful for AV or GMs. Honest, they can use all the time, just overkill in most content. Hybrid brings a lot of very good buffs.

Currently, on live sleeps are not auto hit. They are auto hit on beta, except for AVs. Unfortunately, cold's AOE sleep does damage, so when they wake up they will remember you. Unlike Mind or Plant. Also, cold's sleep has a shorter ranged compared to Mind or Plant. Mind is 80. Plant is 70. Cold and Electric are 60. Earth is PBAOE. The range does not matter in normal play, but on the ASF at higher difficulties the mobs have higher perception. Just something to keep in mind when testing out Vicious difficultly or higher on beta.

I sent you an forum IM. My standard stamina slotting is two stamina IOs and one performance shifter proc. Also, slot SO end reducers as you get them as drops until your can respec. Check the auction house just in case for IOs.

Funny enough I wanted to slot it more for recharge. Of course, doms want it for the purple set recharge also. Having it up every twelve second due to slotting and global recharge is a nice get out of trouble card.

Oh dear you need some money. Are you on Excelsior? At the very least 3 slot stamina.

I know why Widows/Forts are end hogs, the expensive claw attacks. It's not the AT toggles, they are cheaper than the pool versions. Not sure about Crabs though, but likely it's your AOE attacks. A quick glance shows a lot of +15 end attacks. Full sets will help a lot with endurance. You should post your build. My Bane is the only end stable melee VEAT I have. Some ranged Widow/Fort/Wolfspider builds are end stable. Ranged attacks have reasonable end costs.

Argh. I mean next page.

Did a quick check a -fly 1.6 is enough to ground a 54 boss in ASF. Impale and pretty much any control power that has -fly is enough to ground bosses at least. Good news. Surviving casting an AOE immobilize if the tank is over aggro cap is another question. 🙂 There are a lot of open questions, I know Elec/Elec Sentinel have been useful sappers in ASF. They fight at range mostly, but as @oedipus_tex surviving close to the fight with aggroing AOE controls like Conductive Aura has yet to be determined. Another open question is pets. Non-mastermind pets tend to cause annoying issues in normal play due to chasing runners. That can be fatal in a max ASF. Best argument for giving non-Masterminds at least a recall pet button.

He is not supposed to be soloable at that difficulty. Or at least at this time, no one has posted a way to beat it. Someone will come up with a specific way at some point. The player base is insanely creative.

I have been discussing with a few people the problem of uncontrollable pets at high difficulties. Controlled pulling is important and it seems to me that pets that cannot be pulled back are a liability. Just a thought for the next patch. Maybe give all pets a return to owner button. What has been folks experience with non-Mastermind pets on relentless?

There is one circumstance I would pick Degenerative radial over core. Otherwise, it's core all the way. If you're using Soldier of Arachnos venom grenade which provides -40 toxic resists. So, it boosts the toxic dot nicely.

So, after lots of testing on the beta server. Unfortunately, solo as it's hard to get groups. My test routine goes like 4x8 DA "radios", 4x8 PI Radios, Oroboros Trapdoor mission, then 50x8 ASF first 2-3 mission. I tested Mind/Dark, Mind/Savage, Mind/Martial, but the winner is... Mind/Thorny/Psi... what!..did you give the wrong envelope again! No really, this was the best?!?! Let me try and explain and you all more experienced folks can tell me how insane I am. Mind is well awesome, the new sleep auto hit is amazing for stopping everything, even with the small AV nerf it got in the last build. Plant and Dark are better soloers, not arguing, but I have done relentless runs with other ATs. @Mezmera is accurate about how useful the amount of control Mind brings to ASF at that difficultly. Thorny Assault works best for my play style. You can fight at range or melee on the edge of the group with Terrify and Fling Thorns cones. So, it does not required jumping into the middle of the fight and back out like savage. Lots of utility to the group with -defense, it has massive amounts of -defense and -fly/jump to keep the mobs nearby. Also, Impale and Thorn Barrage proc really well. Thorn Barrage in particular procs extremely well for force feedback. The build is a bit wobbly on end in long fights, but domination comes back quickly because of the force feedback proc, so it's manageable.

More difficulty thoughts. Miss Liberty's TF: Banes get venom and frag grenade. Mu's get an end drain toggle. Spiders summon more spiders to aggro cap the tank/brute. Widows/Forunatas get mind link and shockwave.

A bit of bummer. I was enjoying sleeping the AV in the cauldron fight with mesmerize in one shot while I cleared the turrets. But I can see how that could be exploited. Still I love the sleep change, nothing like resetting a fight that got out of control with one Mass Hypnosis.

I have been thinking for fun what extra powers could be added to other TFs at the higher difficulties. Freakshow tanks have an EMP burst. Council vampires put a life drain toggle on their victims. Good use for controls to knock those toggles off. Sky raider bosses get full auto or a missile barrage.

Nah, recharge

Voltak from your video, you obviously figured out all the strategy for the Live TFs. I look forward to you trying out Doc Aeon's SF. It's been designed to minimize a number of the common tactics. Over level 51 some of the mobs run tactics which severely reduces the duration of confuse and fear. My Fortunata could not keep any confuse on key mobs due to tactics. Pretty much everything flies, so no avoiding melee. One of the reasons I wanted a melee durable build. It will be fun to see players adapt.

Thank you all for the feedback. I know the Mind Control is a touchy subject here. So, I am not trolling when I ask, with the new sleep changes has anyone tried Mind or Plant:Spore Burst. I have a grav/psi dom which I ran the new SF on beta for a few missions. Even with Spirit Ward if I left Singy unsupported he took quite a beating because of all the -resist. The benefit to Singy is the ease of locking down an EB with the extra controls. I am familiar with Dark Melee, not Assault, and the usefulness of LifeDrain. Drain Psyche is great, but I find it difficult to use well w/o the crutch of Wormhole. So, Dark Assault looks like the better choice for me. I am undecided between Plant and Dark. Has anyone run ASF at high difficult? What was your experience?

So, I have been checking out Dr. Aeon's Strike force on beta. The higher difficulties are well pretty difficult. I like to play hybrid ATs, VEATs primary, where you have a mix of ranged and melee. Pure ranged/melee builds bore me after awhile. I am looking for a durable combo that can live mostly in melee. Durable or control heavy enough to survive at +4 in most TFs. Examples, sapper builds, heavy control builds, debuff builds, others I haven't thought of.

A video is worth a thousand posts. A quick fight with one group of 54 Arachnos. No Tesla Cage Proc'ed out Dominate I am dropping World of Confusion next build, so I didn't use it Mu Guardian bosses are still very energy resistant, but the lts and minions go down pretty with no end Note, how little return fire I am taking Build is still work in progress. Need more binds.

To be clear I am talking my traps/elec defender experience, not blaster. If I can keep drain and -recovery on a target, which is much easier for a defender. Yes, they still attack, but much less frequently, don't use some of their expensive big hitters, and lose some defensive toggles. For example, I noticed that 54 Arachnos Mu mobs were dying surprisingly quickly to my energy attacks, even though they have high energy resists. Turns out most of the energy resist is from a toggle Lightning Armor. Also, I was fighting in close range with Fortunata Mistresses which fire a Psychic Wail nuke at low hp. They cannot fire it due to lack of end, it requires 28 end. I did a quick look at Blaster values and compared them with the slotting I am using on my defender. Short Circuit with a complete Power Transfer set. End drain, Blaster 59 vs defender 74. Thunder Strike with damage pieces only. End drain Blaster 55 vs 80. Also, also an 30% chance for more end drain 25 vs 33. Tesla Cage with end set 14 vs 17. Most mobs will be drained pretty quickly with those numbers. Plus, blasters can take a secondary that also helps with drain. End drain isn't go neuter mobs, but it does provide defensive advantages that are not immediately obvious.

More testing follow up. I find Tesla Cage still very optional. I swapped Tesla Cage for Psychic Mastery: Dominate. TS drains better as expected, but Dominate is so much better in terms of damage and twice the base hold duration. The constant barrage of single target attack was more than enough drain and shock against tough single targets. Short Circuit, Ball Lightning, and Thunderstrike were plenty of drain and -recovery for AOE. My suggestion would be raise the recharge of Tesla Cage, so it procs better. Right now, the Epic pool holds are better in terms of damage potential. TC with full procs, 325, dominate 462. About 30% more damage. Now, for a corruptor, blasters, or sentinel Tesla Cage might be more useful. Not seeing it for defenders due to their excellent end drain modifiers. Current build, Victory Rush is for teams. I didn't need it fighting 54 Arachnos, even with those damn Mu drains.