Onlyasandwich

A while back I spun up a "fear tank" approach to DA, and have had a hankering to revisit. Traditionally, we choose one of Oppressive Gloom or Cloak of Fear on DA, and OG wins out almost every time due to superior efficiency and general stun stacking opportunities. On this guy, I'm embracing the fear! It may not be 100% optimal, but it's pretty effective and a fun approach. Most of my questions have to do with Kinetic Melee. I've skipped Concentrated Strike in my current build - do you think this is a mistake? My rationale is: I have a comparable DPA rotation without it, and can save the power pick. Long activation time can result in overkill on teams. I'm not stun stacking, so the secondary effect is less useful. Quicker attacks have an advantage in KM, as they will reach 5 stacks on Power Siphon more readily. The weak link here focused burst. I just wish it were a little bit better. Decent enough DPA procced as is, and contributes FFback to my ST chain though. If you have other input on the build, I'd value your feedback! My goals are: Fear stacking fun with max hit chance against 3's. Shoring up Energy Resist as much as possible without gutting other capabilities. A side dish of melee defense to get within softcap on a small purple. High slow resist. Maximizing FFback opportunities, optimizing attacks through frankenslotting and procs where practical. Feed the end best that is DA! Mesmerize is mostly a mule here, though the one-shot detoggle can be nice for certain bosses and AVs. I'm preferring to keep my attacks in set for theme, avoiding epic attacks. Where I'd like to improve if possible without sacrificing the above: Squeeze a slot for a damage proc in invoke panic. A bit more global acc would be nice. Right now I'm relying on the small tohit from Power Siphon for max chance on certain powers, and uptime, while good with all the ffback firing, isn't 100%. A little more slow resist. Any opportunities to improve uncapped resists. Build below. Note that I have procs toggled off for all my FFback powers. Power Siphon is on but with zero stacks. Man does KM feel bad without stacks up! I do wish it were practical to perma. Tanker - Dark Armor - Kinetic Melee.mbd Text: Chunk:

I don't think it's a worthy trade in this build. The extra NE resist and endredux are both desirable, and of course the melee defense for larger sets is nice. The benefit of stacking a few more tiny hp boosts is pretty marginal. I agree that harmonized mind would be a waste. You may even find yourself fairly okay on end consumption as is even without 2+/sec recovery, as your attacks will be so much cheaper due to Energize.

All of these primaries are great, and I don't think there's really anything to call out in combination with staff specifically. Some are stronger than others sure, but I say go DA if it is speaking to you! Just know that you'll want to sacrifice a few slots (ideally 3 unless you are going flight pool with Evasive maneuvers) for Knockback protection. If you have evasive and can afford to run it, 1-2 KB protection IOs are fine due to the KB resistance provided. Rad, Bio, and Invuln are probably the best from a min/max "really awesome armor sets" perspective. SR can run really lean on slots, which frees you up to focus more on your attacks. Very simple to build. ELA, WP, and DA are all excellent as well though. Cardiac Core is indeed a strong choice on DA. It's one of the few armors where I'd pick this over a damage option, as you really benefit from doubling down on resists, and the end redux is a life saver.

Really well done on the build, Strider! It's honestly very tight as is. I did make some minor adjustments for no loss (mostly moving the Psi resist Impervium from tough to a 5th Might ATO in Lightning Field - free 6% Toxic for no downside), but did a few other small changes that I feel are worth it. To the point above though - I think you're on target, though both Crushing Blow and Defensive Sweep have their merits. 100% defensive sweep would be useful in some scenarios, but: You have pretty good aoe chaining with whirling and arc, given that both have FFback support. These are also super efficient aoes while in momentum - much more so than defensive. Without Crushing Blow, your ST would be pretty annoying. Just follow through + Rend would be really awkward, and you'd be blowing end and animation time on aoes on hard targets. A few other things I changed: Dropped Assault in favor of Power Surge. You gain a slot through muling Gladiator Unique, which I shifted to some end support. Assault is pretty paltry return here, and you're already tight on end, so running it all the time is not ideal. You can always lean on Power Sink, but it has a large animation time, and is best reserved for emergencies rather than set as a required element to maintain your rotation. Honestly I'm not sure how Power Sink works with the Power Transfer Proc. If it heals based on enemies hit, that's pretty brilliant! Power Surge gives you something to fall back on if overwhelmed with toxic damage, really needing to cap NE in a fight, or in certain content where being immune to resist debuffs for a while is handy. Mostly there for the mule, but surprisingly handy at times. Swapped some slotting in Dark Oblit. The Immob proc isn't super useful on a tanker, who already has mobs glued to them. In fact, immobilizing distant foes could be annoying, as they will fail to clump around you. The Rag proc will have almost twice the chance to go off than Overwhelming force, as OF is a set 20% no matter the proc math. It is a nice bit of extra mitigation! Dropped a recharge for buildup proc in build momentum. With your global recharge +ffback, that extra recharge IO is only going to save you 2-4 seconds on average. Much nicer to have the extra damage on demand. I like the idea of decimation buildup in Gloom, but swapped it for another damage proc. The issue is that the decimation proc only has a little over a 5 second window, and by virtue of using Gloom, you'll already be forced to draw your weapon, and may not be in momentum window, so it will be very hard to take advantage of procs. One thing you might consider is dropping epic attacks entirely. Gloom/oblit will almost always come out on top in ultimate DPA, but you could: Have a simpler time managing momentum without rotating epics in. Work in Defensive Sweep for some extra lotg fun, the parry benefits, and even proc it out to work into aoe. Grab a travel power. This would let you mule the winter set IO for slow resist, which would mean you don't need the winter set in defensive to keep capped slow resist. This would let you more freely frankenslot and proc out Defensive Sweep as above. Epics always have thematic considerations too of course. Soul Mastery is a really strong choice here! Just something to consider. Here is an example approach for an epicless iteration. Even with no DDR, 51% melee defense is pretty nice! This also allows some slotting freedom to juice NE a bit more too as you see. Tanker Elec-TW no epics.mbd Other than that, it's a really nice balance of damage and survivability! You could push the pedal in either direction, but you've hit a good spot between them. Usually I like the Might ATO proc in a medium recharge ST attack with good proc potential so I can triple stack it. However, I think LF is the right play as you have done here. Crushing Blow isn't the best for proccing, follow through a bit too conditional, and rend a bit too long on recharge. You'll get a brainless 1-2 stacks and be happy. Note in my update I have toggled build momentum off, and did include the recommended Alpha (musculature Radial). Tanker Elec-TW.mbd Text: Chunk:

The dummies are immobilized by default perhaps? I know this is often the case with destroyable mission objects.

Hi JJ! This was not meant as an attack on you, but an explanation of the mechanic for these two specific powers. It may seem unintuitive, but due to the special mechanics behind Shield Charge and Lightning Rod, indeed they do not remove you from Hide. You can test this by: Removing the hide ATO proc. Using Shield Charge or Lightning Rod. Note when doing so that they do not crit, as they are not capable of it. Follow up with a different power - it will crit, as you are still hidden. You do have to follow up with your next attack pretty quickly, as otherwise the reprisal from the mobs will remove your hidden status. However, Shield Charge and Lightning Rod themselves will not.

You are correct! Essentially neither of these powers interact with hide at all. They gain no crit benefit, and they do not disrupt it. Technically, what @JJDrakken mentioned is true - they would still pop the hide proc. However, you are already still hidden anyhow, so there is no benefit from the proc. Generally you would want to open with one or the other of LR or SC, then follow up with actual crittable aoes immediately. Even without the ATO proc they will crit, as you are still hidden. This is because the Psuedopet is doing the initial damage rather than you.

Well here I go - spun one up! Something pretty interesting to consider is the Frozen blast immob proc in sleep grenade. It has a 90% chance for mag 3 immob on the entire spawn! This gives us the missing piece for aoe immob, while keeping the fantastic procciness and utility of sleep grenade. I'm not sure if mids is counting this per initial impact or over the duration, however. Both cases are very nice, but even better if it's immediate. I'd like to find a way to work in Entangling arrow, mostly for the ST debuff, but I'm pretty attached to my other power choices. Fun stuff going on here: Great acc against +3's, even without accounting for acid arrow/oil slick debuffs and siphon insight procs. Enough recharge to get you moving along. One strength of Arse/TA is that you have bucketloads of aoe controls, so the pressure is taken off of single powers. You'll always have something powerful ready to shoot. Modest recharge resistance. Lots o' procs! Sleep grenade, acid arrow, flash bang, and ball lightning all do very respectable DPA, and are a worthy damage rotation on their own. A strong ST attach chain. Proccy Tranqilizer, Cryo, and Ice Arrow are not only great damage, but layer very useful control effects as you go. Tranquilizer has some subtle impacts on mob AI, and can really slow down AV's attacks due to disruption of their patterns from the sleep, even discounting the time they actually spend asleep. Modest resists, with Surge of Power to back you up when needed. Surge is just another tool in your belt when controls just aren't going to keep you alive on their own. You don't need it to last forever, as it gives you time to lay down a field of crazy debuffs and controls, and wait for them to come back up in a pinch. As with all my TA characters, I start with an okay layer of range defense and leave it at that. Here we have not only Flash Arrow, but also Smoke Canister when it's up to floor enemy hit chance. In practice, I might find Power Sink unnecessary - we'll see. If so, I can swap it in for Entangling Arrow. The real issue here is keeping every power within easy keybind range! This may be the most "Piano" build I've ever put together in CoH. Basically everything is a clicky. List view: Controller (Arsenal Control - Trick Arrow).mbd Chunk:

On paper they seem pretty decent, but the -1 level and aggro ai cause them to disappear quickly as @Uun noted. If you have a really compelling alternative, it's one of the only controller pets I would even consider skipping. Even so, you can definitely leverage your defensive tools to make them worthwhile.

Now I want to build an arse/ta myself! If only you could launch arrows from a gun.

Respec if making a new build sounds fun. Most of my 50s will keep their builds for now, but if I get a bug in my britches about a certain one I'll crank mids and follow through. I am looking cross-eyed at the dead set bonuses on characters that chose water spout. Boo. There isn't a good proxy to swap in without a full overhaul.

Is this why council vamp bosses were sprinting away from my tanker in the Orpheus arc after hitting low health? Maybe they were never properly taunted in the first place. It was very obnoxious.

I'd probably go the latter, though either combo would be excellent. Some would say to layer Martial with Rad, as it will provide a solid defensive boost to layer with your resists, and make softcap approaches easier. This is not a bad approach! However, on a tanker I find myself too easily debuffed when trying to layer substantial defense without defense debuff resistance. It works great against some enemies, but may as well not exist against others. I'd rather just rely on Rad's baseline power (it's very survivable without a defense focus) and have the damage of Fire. Shield on the other hand has solid DDR, and would appreciate the extra defense for: Greater build flexibility. Incarnate content. Ultimately theme is king! Choose what you find to be most interesting.

I think it has enough identity. Almost every power out there has some amount of overlap with others. The unique flavor here is: Lots of location aoes - very handy for strategic approaches (behind walls, etc) No aoe immob. I know this is a complaint some have, but it adds a different approach to managing mob position. Not even mind can claim this quality now. The sleep becomes the closest proxy, and I haven't really missed the immob much myself. As far as the powers themselves go: Tranq - similar to mesmerize. Cryo Freeze Ray - standard hold. Sleep Grenade - some elements in common with static field, but different debuff effects, and has a damage component. Liquid Nitrogen - Fair enough - pretty much Ice Slick Cloaking Device - Similar to superior invis Smoke Canister - Very interesting power with a unique condition for triggering its mez. Flash Bang - Standard aoe stun. Tear Gas - Closest to Shadow Field, but with a different debuff. Tri cannon - Pretty similar to blaster pet. So basically three pretty unique powers, 2 totally standard, and the rest have limited cross-over with specific sets. Take a look at most any other primary and you won't find this pattern to be hugely different. Probably the biggest thing that might stand a change in my view is to make the pet more interesting.

I don't have much experience in *4 content, so my perspective is lacking there. It sounds like you have an excellent handle on the implications of the secondaries! A few impressions from my own experience with some that you highlighted: I don't find Street Justice very satisfying. This is just a personal "feel" from the feedback the set gives me. The aoes are awkward and small, even for a tanker. Concept is king of course! You may find the animations more to your liking. Kinetic Melee has nice soft control through KD and the damage debuff as you note. However, it pays for it in damage. The Power Siphon mechanic just about catches it up to where another set would already be without the extra effort. I'm sure survivability is more important in hard mode, however, so you may find it to your liking. Stone Melee I'm sure would be outstanding on a team, but can be difficult when solo unless you have end support through your primary. Not a deal breaker, especially with incarnates. Electric Melee will have great burst damage, but is lacking in aoe damage over time. The Thunder Strike buff is nice, but actually cut the little aoe potential it had (not much lost here really). Chain Induction and Jacob's ladder are fairly minor aoe contributors. All of your aoe is highly invested into Lightning Rod, which is on a long cooldown. Still a good set, but its aoe is more concentrated rather than actually superior to others. You can't go wrong with the others you mentioned. They will pair with any primary and perform well. I personally don't find the rage crash to be a problem, but I don't bother double stacking. I just use it as a perma base upon which to build a more proc oriented secondary. My own Shield tanker is Shield/Savage. I absolutely feel the lethal resistance with some crowds, but it's very breezy to play, easy on the end, and has the very impactful savage leap. Savage Leap gives me more battlefield repositioning fun than Lightning Rod, and is super proccable. Single target rotation is a little janky though, as Hemo is still poop.

Sometimes sorcery for a build that could really benefit from rotating rune with another defensive steroid. Bonus points is flying is in theme. Force of will for much the same reason, though it requires more investment. Unleash potential is outstanding if you have some slot and power flexibility to give it love. If my concept involves flying, I'll definitely grab hover for in combat movement and extra defense. Extra bonus that the pool has another lotg mule if needed. I don't think the steroid in experimentation is worth it. This is better if you have a character that will benefit from the attacks as well, which won't be a stalker. Otherwise the power investment to get there is questionable.

White recipes and regular enhancements get vendored. Purples and high value ios depend on the market, but generally posted for quick sale at a reasonable price. Everything else I post for 5 inf to sell immediately and empty my bag. Better for the market if I get that salvage and mid/low tier recipes circulating instead of vendored! I make my money with other market processes unrelated to this. This takes five minutes once a week.

I don't look at tranq as an easy skip, but had a few reasons for skipping it on my arse/arse: With domination up, Sleep Grenade achieves a similar purpose, and is on a pretty low cooldown once the build is mature. As I'm going for Unleash, I was just a little squeezed for powers, and something had to go. Burst would be a pretty easy direct swap. However, it has better DPA, rounds out ranged rotations more completely, and is a good spot for Decimation BU proc and achilles since I can weave it in easily. Normally I have a tough time justifying the buildup proc, but the clamped 10% chance gives me a solid floor considering how much it will get spammed throughout battle. If I capitalize on the proc with an aoe or even just my higher DPA single target powers, it comes out to a really great return over time. I'll have to grab it on the way up at least to test it on AVs as you describe! Maybe I'll change my tune. I think it would be a slam dunk on a controller in place of an epic blast or something like arcane bolt. You're right in that there is very little synergy with the assault set. Like most folks I'm sure, I chose it for theme. Targeting Drone has synergy with a proc strategy on any primary of course. I've been very pleased with the power of the controls! The location aoe nature makes them very flexible for unique engagements and exploiting battlefield features to minimize damage taken. Sleep Grenade does a much better job of keeping things in one place than I thought it would. I don't know that this will hold true once I have ignite, though. That being said, I think I would probably do the same as you here if picking /elec, since its T1 has less proc opportunity. My own build makes some very similar choices otherwise. I especially enjoy the idea of making good use of Surge of Power! I wonder - does Power Up work with Unleash like cast buffs with a duration (FFields, Fort, etc), and give you the extra defense for the entire duration? I would think so. If so, I should be able to use it on every cast, giving me even incarnate cap ranged defense when up. Alternatively, I could reconsider my slotting for Unleash to focus on more basic recharge and regular softcap with PU enabled, freeing up some slots. I chose to proc out Flash Bang rather than Cryo. I'm usually a big proccy hold believer, but end up doing it less often on doms. The logic here is that I have pretty good ST damage in most assault sets, but aoe can be a bit lacking without epic support. Flash Bang puts out a nice chunk to intro most battles when procced. In your case, you picked up epic aoe, so fair enough for sure! Here's my build for comparison. Note that all but one power with FFback has procs disabled so as to not overexaggerate recharge potential, and decimation proc is toggled on. Wall of force is a proxy for Ignite, as mids won't let you slot it yet. Chunk: Dominator (Arsenal Control - Arsenal Assault) mk2.mbd

I have my own arse/arse up to 20, and it's a blast! Honestly the wealth of controls at this level feels really strong, and I feel more in control than most other doms at this level on the way up. Sleep Grenade especially is way more powerful than I anticipated. I'm perfectly happy having this in place of an aoe immob. Proccy, does a great job of silencing the alpha, and provides pretty solid ongoing mitigation as well. Obviously running in the 20's is no real test of a build, and I haven't tackled any challenging content. I always seem to have a really capable control at the ready though, and most of my controls contribute a solid chunk of damage themselves. Waiting for mids to update again so I can properly slot ignite and work out the rest of my build. Still interested in how this power works out in practice. Overall, it's fun to just spew random grenades and liquids out of my gun! My build has taken everything but tranquilizer in primary/secondary. I like tranq, but decided Burst was actually a pretty handy and efficient tool to have around for better overall ranged engagement. My defensive tools outside controls are: Ranged defense softcap with Unleash Potential up. Cycling Unleash with Surge of Power at high levels. I don't usually bother with crashy T9 type powers, but it's a good mule here, and doms can refill end with domination even when fully drained. I'm hoping this bit of AT synergy makes it worth using. The idea is rotating Unleash and Surge most of the time, but stacking when needed to become extra super tanky when needed. Ranged softcap with max resists to almost everything along with infinite end is nothing to sneeze at! I also like that I have plenty of efficient spots for FFback, which takes a little pressure off recharge set bonuses. Targeting drone has a similar effect, giving me more proc flexibility, as well as ramping quick snipe damage. Lots to like!

How are we liking Ignite here, anyone who's had a chance to get there either on beta or live? I'm rolling one up myself, but am afraid the fear effect may not mesh super well with the lack of immob, but maybe the other effects are good enough.

Ah, but you use the magical spoiler tags! In my book, that makes you a master indeed.

1. Plant/Fire Dom. An aggressive, spawn smashing powerhouse that lives and dies on their controls. 2. Grav/Energy Dom. TP other with a flaming singularity is pure joy, and popping the next spawn into that flaming pile with wormhole is even better. Energy is thematic here - secondary could be anything 😄 3. Rad/WM Tanker. Infinite endurance, nearly unkillable, outstanding aoe, and crunch for days. 4. Fire/Storm controller. Infinitely negative endurance (it's part of the fun!), and an absurd amount of damage for a controller. Visually chaotic, but controllable with the right approach. 5. Seismic/Earth blaster. Timing the meteor to wipe a spawn without worrying about the scatter is very satisfying. Every power is crunch smunch, and I can cram loads of wonderful FFback throughout. This is a hard list! I have at least 5 other characters that I still revisit just because they are such fun to play. The other 50 or so 50's do sit there gathering dust, and were fun to level and finalize, but don't give me the itch.

Anything electric armor I tend to prefer in a brute. Higher resist cap. Ela will be way over capped on several values, wasting some of its power budget. Taunt aura. Only certain armors retain their taunt aura in scrappers, and Ela is not one. Without it, runners are very annoying solo. Damage auras scale nicely with fury. Katana is off course outstanding on a scrapper, but great on a brute as well. Tanker is a worthy contender too of course.

I've found it useful, but am not on my final 50 build taking on 4x8. Is it literally just breaking almost immediately upon use, and have you found slotting it for heal to make a difference? I wasn't sure whether heal slotting would increase geode hp or only the Regen component.

It's hard for me to speak objectively here because I really love the trade-off that procs present, and the interesting optimizations you can do with some truly surprising builds. The vast majority of characters sacrifice huge defensive opportunities, recharge, accuracy, and end efficiency when focusing on procs. I find it fun to find the razor's edge of balance between just enough survival and leveraging procs to squeeze that extra juice. There are a handful of combos that break this limitation, as they can solve defense so easily with few slots and powers. Super reflex tankers and Pbu time characters are the main offenders. Even then, play one and I don't think you'll find it any better than a really well built primary with other strengths. Well - maybe time covers a too much territory as a set a little too well. Without procs as a very attractive alternative, I find it becomes a little too easy to come to a consensus on objectively superior "solved" builds. With procs in the picture, I can justify my super fun dominators who almost completely forego defense. They really lean on their control primaries to survive, and the reward for managing that risk with smart play is a meaningful chunk of damage. If not for procs, it would pretty much be defense softcap all day. I mean - it sort of is still, even though proc heavy builds are more popular than before.