Mezmera

Yeah I was backing up your observation while also adding my experience to this topic. When I respec'd out of Taunt on my tank for Provoke so I could chase Unrelenting I had to look real hard at the two variants of the Taunt/Provoke so that when I got made fun of for not taking Taunt on a tank I had some kind of retort.

Yes Provoke is 5 but you can always tab targets and call another group of 5 names. Taunt is 5 as well but like @tidge was pointing out it is auto hit except for any procs slotted and it also does -range. That's most of the difference between the two, there's likely higher taunt values from the main taunt powers too. On tankers though you'll draw so much aggro from other abilities that you can sneeze to maintain max aggro. My tank's accuracy is pretty great so I went with Provoke so I could pick up Unrelenting. I never notice any drop in being able to attract attention unless there is another tank spamming their real Taunt.

On the plus side for the next run all of you will now know for certain to take the respec reward and skip the merits.

Shield defense is a great set and can be built into a top tier tank. I'm not so sure about Kinetic Melee though as others are pointing out the long animations sap the fun out of anything you play. Plus as the tank you won't want to get caught up in animation if you need to be grabbing unforeseen aggro all of a sudden or some attacks get through and you don't have time to fix yourself being stuck animating. As far as Shield goes though it depends on what your goal is. I wanted on mine to add in some good psi resist so I have some of those impervium armors sprinkled in. I'll give you a quick look at how a good slotting of Shield powers would be. Battle Agility: 4 Shield Walls w/unique (if this is your only set of Shield Wall) True Grit: Gladiator armor (resist) plus the unique and steadfast unique. 3 Numina's (heal) with the unique Deflection: 4 Unbreakable Guards and 2 LotG (defense and global recharge) Active Defenses: 50+5 recharge Against All Odds: 50+5 end redux Phalanx: Lotg + recharge Grant Cover: Lotg + recharge Shield Charge: 6 Armageddon One With the Shield: 4 Unbreakable Guard w/unique I +5 just about all of my stuff since endgame is where you'll want to eek out all the tankiness you can.

Yeah I'd have no problem letting guys wear those fancy robes if the girls can run around bare chested. Typically women don't wanna walk around willy nilly with their goods hanging out seeing that they may attract some untoward advances. Last I checked though all of my characters had super powers, so they could handle whatever unwanted attention comes their way. Robes for walking around Au Natural, fair trade, the guys can keep those ugly haircuts to themselves though.

Energy Aura is a great armor, top tier for sure without IO's. Like all power sets it gets even stronger building it with the right IO sets, it is a bit more forgiving armor with more plug and play appeal. Ice Armor isn't as strong at first but built right it's a bit more tankier than EA in my opinion, Icy Bastion on its own is worth taking Ice Armor on Stalkers but it is a bit more busy armor you have to get used to, there's lots of gear shifting due to that great t9 and energy absorption. I like both sets but Ice Armor is a bit harder to play and a bit more rewarding if it's tailored right. The other thing though is that thematically covering your character in blocks of ice might not be a look you care much for although being a Stalker you'll be hidden lots anyways so it may not matter much to you.

I like to slot the shield with 4 Unbreakable Guards with the hp unique and the other 2 resist uniques unless if I also take Tough which I will 3 slot and put those defense uniques there. Don't sleep on Dark Obliteration its a great ranged aoe blast with nearly the same dpa as Whirling Hands per target with a higher target count, a 1s animation and better adaptable range. Yeah I had to make some hard decisions about slotting. I like to slot Soul Drain with 5 Superior Avalanche and the Gaussian proc if I don't have tactics. Soul Drain is far too good of a boost to your damage so I like to get this one to recharge fast and its a nice pbaoe damage power of its own. Dark Consumption is your mighty proc power which that -res proc is big against AVs and along with Weaken Resolve with the Achilles its real noticeable how much faster AVs whittle down. This is a very optimal proc power and hitting 2-3 targets will fill your blue bar back up regardless, at minimum I like to 3 slot DC with a 50+5 Dmg/Acc/Rech Armageddon and the dmg proc plus the Fury -res proc. I can see 4 slotting Blind sure. I do take Spooky and 4 slot him with 4 Clouded Senses. The powers I skip on Illusion are the Immob and t9 pet (he's tissue paper tough). The incarnates I use are Agility, Diamagnetic, Barrier and Assault double hit.

My new Illusion/Nrg/Soul is an animal you've heard correct. I do go with Force of Will pool myself for power boosted Unleash Potential and Weaken Resolve with the Achilles proc. I build in good defenses on my doms and then let that major defense from Unleash Potential carry me to high numbers. This lets me not to have to chase all defense bonuses but target the good ones and build for other things since that one power can do so much more for me for when my controls aren't recharged to keep targets from attacking me. Rarely do I go with the Ice pool. It's such a one dimensional Epic Pool when there's so many good ones on doms. I can take Dark Consumption from Soul Mastery and drop a Fury of the Gladiator -res proc into it for nearly the same effect as Sleet granted at a longer recharge, but you're building for recharge on doms so it should recharge well enough anyways. Based on the recharge of this power it will fire any proc you toss in there on 90% of the targets. So not only are you getting almost equivalent -res to Sleet but you're capable of detonating all kinds of damage plus it fills back your endurance bar all in this one power. Then you get access to Soul Drain, Dark Obliteration and the resistance shield which are all great powers of their own. I'd have a look at what all powers there are from the Epic Pools because any time I consider making a dom I consider what primary, secondary and epic pool I will use. Total Focus is a nice power to put this ATO. Personally I don't like splitting that set up and put all 6 into my most used ST control like the hold. Whirling Hands is very bland. It doesn't do extra damage like when they first revamped Energy it now has the gimmick where it insta recharges with the release mechanic which doesn't matter much since it recharged super fast anyways so they halved the damage for double the animation. The bread and butter of Energy is Total Focus, Power Burst with +dmg from release, Bone Smasher with +debuff from release, and Snipe. Proc'ing long recharge powers like Total Focus and Snipe are the way to go. The rest of the powers have high recharge values so procs are wasted elsewhere which is where I use sets in those ones. I always build for a decent amount of defense around 35-45% positionals and let Unleash Potential and Barrier Destiny carry my defenses high when I need it especially when my aoe controls are a ways off from recharging.

When they first revamped Energy Assault Whirling Hands release mechanic allowed it to do double damage but you were locked out from building Energy every 15s. When they removed the lockout they had to nerf WH as it would be silly constant damage. As it is I skip Whirling Hands, that instant recharge gimmick is meh since it recharges fast enough anyways, it's not worth getting caught up doing twice that animation. I go Soul Mastery and get all of my aoe from Soul Drain, Dark Obliteration and Dark Consumption (which can detonate some nasty procs AND refills your endurance if you ever need it)

Yes Energy is a melee fighter but Power Burst and Snipe are quite the strong ST blasts, its no slouch in ranged attacks. To get the full potential out of Energy though you'll need to make use of Total Focus' 100% chance to build the mechanic, it hits hard so regardless you'll be wanting to use it often when you're needing to build the mechanic. After TF you follow up with either a Power Burst for nasty damage or Bone Smasher for a nice debuff (and decent damage). I alternate these two releases on AV fights. If you play Energy get in the habit of using Total Focus after you've locked things down then Power Burst and Snipe the things still standing without having to move. Total Focus, Power Burst, Snipe and Bone Smasher is a wicked amount of damage, you won't need other attacks outside of aoe which I dip into the epic pools for those.

Pretty much this. Any character I plan to play after 30 and not just rush on up to 50 I will stop at 30 to take the time to slot the sets I know I'm going to keep in my build for later on like ATOs and defense/resist sets and slot all of the unique's I'm planning to use. If it's a character I will mainly use for playing later on exemp'd at all levels I won't have a problem just getting attuned sets and leaving them in the build since the values will level with you if it won't matter much later on about better enhancement values since the full sets tend to get good values on their own even if they aren't +5'd for later on. Something like Stamina though I will 3 slot one with the performance shifter proc and 2 end mod IOs. Once I reach 50 I will make those 3 slots all Performance Shifter with the two 50's with end mod being +5 since that end mod is a nice value and that hp boost I won't miss much when exemp'd as much as I would endurance. It's totally worth the effort to stop and build your character at 30, you can always respec out the sets you won't keep later on and sell them.

I can help on the Shield side of things. I +5 just about everything I can since this is meant for the hard stuff Deflection: 4 Unbreakable Guards, 2 LotGs (def and def/global) Battle Agility: 4 Shield Walls True Grit: 3 Numinas w/unique, Steadfast +def, 2 Impervium armor w/psi res Active Defenses: 1 Recharge Against All Odds: 1 End redux Grant Cover: 1 LotG +global Shield Charge: 6 Armageddon's One With the Shield: 4 Unbreakable Guards (Resistance and unique) Phalanx Fighting: coin toss but I skipped this one but if you take it slot a Lotg +recharge I also go with Force of Will pool for Unleash Potential for boosted defenses and the high regen/end mod for Smelters, which I slot 4 Shield Walls targeting recharge. Also, I go with Presence pool with the taunt and then Unrelenting to supplement a real nice heal which I slot a full set of Preventative Medicine. As for Alpha I go Agility so I can low slot defenses and still get good value and high numbers on the stuff I want like Battle Agility since you can enhance its DDR. Shield tank is a blast and quite sturdy built well. Total top tier tanker.

It was to the point of the topic summarized to what the OP should know about the LOTG's. If this was a question about the IO system in it's entirety I'd point them your way. You can say I'm wrong about things I didn't even elaborate on that's cool if it gets you to go to bed.

See for reference:

I said rule of 5 applied to the LotG separately of the regular 7.5% recharge you find in the sets. I know why it is because of the naming of different bonuses, I just wanted the OP to get the basics of what to slot for because the question was specifically to the LOTG and not the entirety of the IO system hence a summarized take to the point of the OP's topic with the caveat about not having to worry about these LOTG's conflicting with the regular 7.5 set bonuses so slot the 5 or so as they like. What's there to be wrong about the statement you can slot 5 of the LotG's and 5 of the 7.5% set bonus? Isn't this what is so? Just because I didn't want to junk up the thread to elaborate I am wrong? I didn't want to go off on some sanctimonious diatribe about the wither to's and why not's of the universe because I wanted to save people a long winded response which you have graciously taken from us.

See @MoonSheep now THAT'S a stash. Mr. McDuck will need to put on a deep diving pressure suit to take a dip in this treasure.

Yes thanks my take was the summarized version of what you've just said.

You should cram up to 5 into your build if you can and it makes sense. These 7.5% bonuses have a separate rule of 5 from the regular 7.5% you can get from sets.

What kind of trash stash is this?! There's no Winter packs. Where's your stacks of Hero Merits? Scrooge McDuck would go to take a dive into your "treasure" and would break his neck in that kiddie pool of a stash you have there.

Ascendancy of the Dominator would make sense to leave the bonuses as they are but change it to damage instead of control so it can slot into assaults. Then spruce up the other set and make it good for slotting into a control power.

Sapping isn't so much a big deal but there is TONS of -tohitt in TA and a lot of it unresisted. Not to mention the -50% damage again a lot of it unresisted. On top of oodles of -resistance. All of this stuff highly useful all packed into one character. Yes they neuter them pretty decent. But when you have 3 colds using benumb then the TA is giving them each a 67% (I believe its this number last I checked) boost to their -regen abilities on top of the high -regen the TA brings too stuff just melts when targets get hit with that Acid Arrow along with your other debuffers on the team. There's just too much fascinating stuff that Acid Arrow and Ice Arrow can do for the other characters on the team.

Bone Smasher's Energy Release mechanic on Energy Doms nets you just about this same ability, granted its only single target and half the values of that mighty Acid Arrow, but it's still some mighty fine debuffing during AV fights.

This is all pretty much costume overlays to me it seems more for people who care what npc game characters look like. Some of the overlays are neat like that shadow one but even still it blanks out everything about your costume but those cool looking eyes. Pretty much what I'm pooling mine for, which is the side benefit of playing these new neat tfs.

Well then you're not affected much either way. If you're not on much to play using these new toys you couldn't get before anyways what are you missing out from before that you are now? Since these PAPs can be attained through the auction any and every way of playing the game will earn you money to buy what you like. Use your two to three hours of playtime to play the game and sell some stuff. You can play at your leisure like normal and pool things to get what you like. All you need do is play the game in any manner you like as long as you play it from time to time you'll get what you like and if you don't have the time to play what are you really missing then? Lots of excuses being tossed abouts.

There's lots of good assaults that would mesh well with Illusion. It does tend to play more in melee what with that pbaoe hold so you might want to consider a complimentary set with good melee and range. Energy is top tier ST damage, likely the king if you like to play melee/range hybrid. Dark is also a great assault with nice damage and lots of utility with that -tohitt and the heal. Fire is great damage as well but plays better at range. I think Psi would do well with Illusion thanks to some good pbaoe damage and utility in the +regen. Earth might be okay, I just don't like Earth assault because there's too many good powers and not many consolidated great ones like you find in other assaults. Savage might be fun with that teleport attack and good pbaoe damage. Lots of choices but the new t2 secondary power structure will certainly benefit all the assaults. Illusion doms are certainly going to be fun though.