Onlyasandwich

@Nemu Very fun looking build! One note - I would consider changing one of the targeted aoe procs in Fault to Explosive strike. This way it will go off on the entire aoe instead of just the tiny weird melee cone thingy they added. Otherwise I love the damage focus! With Stone melee, you can really get a lot of mitigation mileage out of carefully timing your Tremor and Fault. If you practice the timing, you can start Tremor in just enough time to knock them on their butts back to back with Fault. If you go a bit too early, the KD will be wasted. I would probably prefer to siphon some of the damage procs from Beta decay and pop them in Stone Mallet as well - you'll get more consistent return in ST situations than the occasional aura tic. The Siphon proc here is a really great addition.

If you're looking for a great ranged secondary, /Ice is certainly up there. Another to consider would be /Beam, though it may not be on-theme based on the context here. Beam is 100% ranged, and even has a beautiful nuke. Water is also 100% ranged, and has plenty of easy to use aoe options. It's worth noting that none of the storm pets will scourge, and LS actually does more damage on a Defender (unless this has changed recently?). I generally prefer Storm on Defenders, as the more powerful debuffs and extra pet damage help bridge the gap in damage, and you can get even further with appropriate proccing. Either would work fine of course. I'd say Dark is 50/50. You'll still be able to stack enough -tohit between DN and FS even on a corruptor, and the extra damage will be simple to leverage. I do like not having to really rely on DN at all most of the time though - having all my normal -tohit needs covered in FS is really nice.

This is simply a mids thing. If you want to be sure you are reviewing your recharge in mids correctly, click the yellow dot to turn it off. This disables procs in the power, which will keep FFback's 100% recharge from influencing totals. This is useful because FFback isn't going to be up 100% of the time, and also it erroneously stacks when present in multiple powers, giving you really wonky high recharge numbers that won't be true in game. Procs in pet powers are a bit specific. FFback and Gaussian provide a buff to the caster, not the pet (if slottable of course). This can still be useful if it is a pet you summon quite often - a common example where this is worthwhile is tornado. Keep in mind FFback is only a 5 second buff. Soulbound allegiance proc is unique in that it is specifically made to buff the pet itself. This is a great proc for most damage oriented pets. Damage procs will only go off in the specific pet powers that the proc type affects. For example, an immobilize damage proc in Fly Trap would proc on Entangle and Roots, but not any of the other powers. A hold proc would only go off on Strangler and Vines from the Fly Trap. There is overlap of course - ranged damage (if slottable) would affect both Entangle and Strangler, as both are ranged damage type. Pets that have many powers with overlapping proc types are better for proc slotting generally. You then want to slot the procs with the best overlap between powers. In some cases, there may not be enough overlap for this to be worthwhile, though it is subjective where to draw that line. If your pet doesn't have any really obvious overlapping procs, you may be better served by instead slotting for set bonuses in it and neglecting many procs. As for your priorities, we want to look at not the general capabilities of the controller, but what bonuses you want to chase. All controllers will be able to lockdown and debuff according to the powers they have chosen. IO slotting will be about other priorities, with some common goals including: Maximizing damage with procs. This will typically have a secondary goal of global accuracy and recharge to support the procced powers. Chasing high global recharge so you can spam strong-impact, long-recharge powers. Honestly this is not all that important for Plant/, though /Rad appreciates it for AM. Going for enough to get Perma AM is a nice goal, which helps with end support as well. Choosing defense type or types to chase near, or all the way to softcap. A common one to go for is Ranged defense. I don't stress much about softcap on controllers, as they have such powerful lockdown tools. Even so, it is worth considering what bonuses you might pick up incidentally - a solid baseline of defense is useful even without softcap. Layering resist for additional durability. It's worth considering that Plants/ basically has all its lockdown needs covered in one power - Seeds. This power takes minimal enhancement to be the strongest control power in the game that is up every spawn without fail. This provides a lot of freedom to pursue other goals in your build. Choking cloud is a nice supplement to this if you want some diversity in your controls. Mu guardian is one of the better epic pets in my opinion! It is purely ranged, so easier to keep alive. As a controller, you are ideally equipped to keep it alive. It's certainly not a "gimme" obvious pick, but if you enjoy the idea of more pets, it will serve you well enough. Epic pets like Mu guardian also benefit from high global recharge so you can have them out more often.

Yes! Free yourself of the fighting pool, and embrace the glory of a happy end bar and room to choose and slot out the deeper epics! Seriously though, I still choose it a lot, but it feels great to have a compelling reason to avoid it.

I recently revamped my own Elec/Shield - perhaps it will be a useful reference point. This build features: Softcap to all positions. Near immunity to slows. Moderate global recharge. Extra proccy goodness squeezed in where possible for more damage.

Honestly it's a pretty good build overall. I wouldn't want to change too much. The only real weakness I see off-hand is that Foot Stomp and Haymaker are a bit underslotted for accuracy. They aren't bad with Rage up, but still a fair toss from 95% hit chance against +4's. If you're only counting level 50 with Alpha level shift, then you're fine, but it would suffer when exemplaring. I don't see any obvious drops to pick up Taunt. Maybe your travel power I guess? Even that is serving a good purpose with the Winter IO, though. I would only bother to adapt anything here if you are just looking to completely rethink the priorities of the build. Right now you are all-out proc offense, and did a good job of balancing that with proper defenses. You could take a more moderate proc approach and instead hit some combination of softcap melee and higher exotic resists, especially Psi. While doing so, you could juice your global recharge numbers a fair bit as well, making up for some of the difference in lost procs. Even so, your numbers look pretty solid for survivability as is. This would be something to consider if you're going to use this tank for Aeon or potentially other challenge modes that come out, or even 801s. Great build overall! Thank you for sharing.

I feel you in this. Definitely a downside to the combo in a tank. Defensive sweep doesn't really get much use later on, so nice to be able to skip it on a brute

Most of the TA powers need minimal basic enhancement to do their job and be up regularly. This leaves you with little reason not to add proc damage wherever possible. I don't find bosses to be a problem that needs solving with a double stacked hold. They are either slowly running toward me or flipping around, and even if they attack they do so with near minimal hit chance and debuffed damage. Positioning and combat movement is key. There is plenty of room for many build priorities in this universe of course! However, with all the mitigation TA provides, you lose very little indeed by maximizing your attacks. The difference in damage between a snipe and a proccy snipe is huge. Survival is a binary thing - either your tools are sufficient or not. Certainly if you are not surviving, then perhaps you would benefit from a different approach. This is also where the ATO procs become more important. Maximizing them for proc potential in your ideal attacks weaves a large amount of healing and absorb into things you are doing anyhow. They have a much higher proc rate than normal, so are somewhat wasted in longish recharge attacks. No one source of proc damage in the primary is enormous, other than perhaps ice arrow, but they all add up to a large amount of free damage that happens while you are doing what is needed to survive. It's also worth noting that without proccy ice arrow, you have very sad single target damage, and will be exposed to those bosses longer in combat, as they will take a while to kill just sniping and plinking weaker arrows at them, especially on lethal resistant mobs. The many procs you can add everywhere also increase damage diversity.

Glad you like it! Gotta go go go go fast! To @Thrax Unless you are facing massive overaggro, Flash and your other mitigation is more than enough, even with less than 30% ranged defense. Seriously - I can just chill out in any +4X8 S/L farm with my guy even at ~26% as long as I bother to keep using my powers. Although I take blazing, I don't ever use it to ignite OSA. I have energy and fire damage procs all over the place. Typically either Acid or Explosive lights it.

This is definitely a combo that caused me to re-evaluate my keybinding strategy. Had to add alt+key to many of my normal spots on top of shift+key. Upon doing so, I do find that I am able to productively use every power in my rotation.

I get it for sure! I don't mind skipping travel power on some builds these days, with all the tools we have. It helps when the character concept doesn't demand one though.

Apologies! I see that now. I was not processing well in my haste. In this case, the biggest benefit would be to Flash's -tohit (I think the way it is coded, only half of it?), though the -def is useful to some degree. I suppose it also increases hold duration for EMP, so not so bad! It's a bit better on TA than I initially considered.

This would be great if so! Have you tested this in game? I was under the impression that +special did not affect -resist powers, or at least most if not all of them are flagged as not enhanceable for this attribute. I am less certain about its impact on -dmg.

Balancing what to take/drop on this combo is indeed a challenge! Update: Additional notes and build added below. Initial thoughts: I would think twice before dropping Explosive. Only having Rain as an aoe option outside of OSA is going to hurt for solo work. Explosive is also a great place to put FFback, allowing you to really speed up those aoe clears. Although Aimed shot is decent, consider dropping this in favor of Explosive. Accuracy is absolutely going to be an issue as is. You have poor hit chances with several key powers against +4's, and still not so hot against +3's. Acid arrow could potentially used as a can-opener to enable other powers in this way, but you'll need better baseline acc slotting here for this to work. I would at least recommend swapping the shield braker acc/defdebuff for a plussed out acc IO instead. I'm all for super proccing when possible! However, Ice Arrow will suffer greatly without subbing one of these for an Acc IO, or rethinking the build towards more global acc bonuses. Finding room for Tactics would go some way to helping with this, but you'll still want actual acc slotting so it is properly multiplied by tohit. While it's true that power buildup will buff a few useful effects like Flash arrow's tohit, the +special isn't really adding anything very compelling to this build that I see. I would rather have Aim with Gaussian proc for more consistent uptime and a stronger overall buff. Given that, you would also be better off with the Mu armor so you have strong energy resist as well. Edit: @Mezmera pointed out some decent benefits to it in TA that I had missed. Personally, I would prefer the better armor/Aim instead, but it's a fair trade to consider. As proccy as you are going here, it is a real missed opportunity to ignore the proc potential of your Snipe. You also haven't made use of the powerful Purple proc, and the snipe is the perfect place for it. It may take a fair bit of reworking, but I'm pretty confident you can manage this and still maintain ranged softcap. Your end usage in this build is actually fairly light, but you have slotted heavy end support. You could definitely get away with skimping more on the end slots, especially the third in Stamina and Numina's. I would consider dropping the Ranged softcap goal entirely, instead allowing Flash Arrow to make up the difference. Doing so will give you far greater flexibility in slotting, and allow you to pump better acc and procs in the powers that matter. Even without flash, you have so much amazing mitigation with all of your knockdown, debuffs, and holds that it is seldom a problem. My own TA/A build does forego a travel power in order to grab all the picks I want. If I had to drop something for travel, it would probably be Fistful. Copying it below for reference. The basic idea with my own build: Get defense to a decent baseline across the board so Flash Arrow can get me to, or close to minimum hit chance against a variety of enemies. Make efficient use of damage procs wherever possible. Use the very powerful Defender ATO procs in powers that I actually want to use often so I benefit from them often. This makes an enormous difference on any defender, but especially those that lack a heal. 80% slow resist is very nice to have! Pump recharge where possible, but not to the detriment of the above priorities. Remember to toggle off Explosive for accurate recharge totals. I do use Explosive quite a bit, and it is a great enabler both solo and in team with FFback.

Very good advice! I do this in basically 99% of my builds these days. I don't put the part with the absorb proc in the T1 though, as that is more valuable in a more proc-worthy power.

All of the above, basically! It's not always a dumb idea to proc out a t1 attack, though. On my Nature/ice Defender, for example, I have decent slot flexibility, and get a reasonable damage return on dropping extra procs in the T1. It's not as optimal as the big hitters, but if you have the slots to spare damage is damage.

Perhaps a bit less common, but no less powerful for it! Amazing primary and classic secondary here will serve you well. A few notes: What are your goals with this build? Your set bonuses are all over the place, with different typed and positional bonuses here and there, but reaching no milestones. Focusing on either ranged softcap, heavy recharge, S/L softcap, super proccy damage, or something else in your IOs will give you a more powerful result. I'm not saying you have to go for softcap at all, but be mindful of what you are working towards and making efficient choices to get there. FFback in Carrion Creepers will only go off upon summon, and the recharge is long - this is not a good return on your slot. Not proccing out your hold is a real missed opportunity for damage. I'm not saying you have to follow the meta here, but it is certainly worth pointing out, as it can do a ton of damage this way. Radiation Infection can easily be taken as a one slot wonder with Lysosome in it. Honestly it is optional, especially on a controller, but I do like to take it myself. Accelerate Metabolism is an important power, and running it perma is a strong goal. It wants both endmod and recharge enhancement. Speaking of end, this build is going to be very hard to sustain. More end support would be advisable. (another IO in stamina, AM, miracle, general slotting for endredux, etc) Lingering Rad can also benefit heavily from acc slotting, as it requires a hit check. Remember to toggle off Fly trap so the buildup proc isn't affecting your totals. As is, LR has a very low chance to hit. If you're picking Hasten, 2 slotting it with two +5 recharge IOs is the way to go. Choking cloud also needs accuracy to work. You are also slotting short of the best bonuses here. If you're going for a purple set in a power like this, make it to the recharge bonus. You also want good endredux here. Purple set is as a result not ideal. I like building for softcap ranged myself, and using Lockdown full 6 piece here. It is a great lynchpin power when slotted so, as it handles all your hold needs in a passive aura, locking down spawns quickly. Another option would be to skip it entirely and rely on Seeds only. Endredux in maneuvers is bad return for your blue investment. One of the above mentioned end supports is a better choice. Your power choices are good here! However, I would really rethink the build from the ground up from a slotting perspective with some specific goals in mind, and evaluate the efficiency of each slotting decision. Try to slot not only for IO set bonuses, but also with an awareness of ED caps and the return on actual enhancement value in the power as well.

This advice is amazing, effective, and hilarious.

I agree generally that mez protection is a pretty strong differentiator for survivability on Defenders. This means that builds outside of Elec, FF, and Sonic will have to reach for other tools like Rune. Time is certainly powerful if you have mez sorted, as others have said, but I don't see that anyone has mentioned Nature yet. Nature provides very strong universal resists that are easily perma, a large absorb shield for emergencies, passive melee aoe CC that locks down most spawns pretty quickly, a strong heal that affects you too, and plenty of other little tricks. As long as you build for ranged defense, I think you'll find it rivals, if not perhaps even trumps other sets mentioned thus far for survivability. As far as "fire and forget" survivability, it is my personal favorite.

On mobile so not fiddling with it fully at the moment, but I'd probably move the current rend slotting to it. Then probably a combo of winter ios and procs to maximize rend damage. That's not ideal of course. I wouldn't mind losing the bit of recharge, but the global acc would hurt. Probably a way to make it up juggling more slotting around. Really though Titan sweep is pretty good, so it's by no means an optimal change. I might dig into this potential change later.

I think you'll find just having follow through period makes a big difference. It is really vital to TW in general. There is some argument to be made for subbing Titan Sweep out for Crushing blow. One issue with TW is starting momentum outside of Build Momentum, and Crushing Blow is not only a decent attack to round out your somewhat lacking ST chain, but also your best Momentum opener, as it is pretty fastish baseline. Otherwise, you'll probably want to do something like: Defensive > Titan > Whirling > Arc > Titan in Aoe or Arc > Follow Through > Rend > Whirling > uh.... more aoes? for Single target. This is by no means a mathed out optimal rotation, but roughly what I remember doing on my Brute. It pays to play with different rotations and see what flows best for you. Open with Build Momentum whenever possible.

Personally I chose to just grab regular teleport as my travel power to save a pick. I do love Combat Teleport, but bear in mind that even regular teleport was significantly sped up - it is very solid for combat use these days. Even so, I would consider dropping Granite for a neat one-slot wonder. You might play with it and see how much you end up using it first.

Added a build to my reply, as well as a bit of extra feedback. 🙂

A great combo for sure! It took me a while to get my /TW Brute to 50. It really doesn't feel so great until you get all of your aoes and are really able to leverage those momentum windows. It's also pretty blue hungry. Edit - build added below. A few notes: Stone skin provides strong +defense as well these days. A hybrid slotting approach is more efficient. You could easily toss the gladiator unique on any other resist power to make room. You have gone 4 slot lotg in several places for very little return. The last lotg has almost no enhancement value after ED, and the 9% acc is redundant with the amount of acc you are stacking. Good baseline slotting for a def power is lotg global rech, then red fortune def and def/end. This gives you near ED max defense, and a little S/L resist bump on top. From there, add other enhancement as the power demands. Arc of destruction is natively knockdown - you don't need a kb to kd IO. Rooted is weirdly slotted. It baseline takes little end for this type of toggle, and doesn't benefit from recharge, yet you have it frankenslotted for both. Either pick a set to benefit from, slot a couple plussed out heals, or maybe 3 frankenslotted heal/end from different sets, and call it a day. Titan sweep isn't the greatest place for your Might ATO proc. Sure it'll go off fine in aoe situations, but you don't want to have to spam Titan sweep in your single target rotation when hitting a hard target. This would be better in either your damage aura, or a decent attack. Follow through or Rend would be my choice. End mod has basically no benefit slotted in physical perfection. Take that and slot a perf shifter proc in Crystal Armor instead. Speaking of focused accuracy, it is a lot less appealing on Stone, as you already resist perception from Minerals. If you goals is phys perfection for end management, I would consider just going Conserve Power instead and leaving it at that. This would free up a power pick too. If you're hurting for end, just drop endredux plussed out in Focused accuracy. You get almost zero return on tohit, and recharge is of no use. Combat Jumping is an easy missed opportunity for more +def at very little end cost, as well as a lotg mule to free up a slot elsewhere. If you can't think of a power to drop, I would consider just swapping maneuvers for this. It would be pretty solid end savings running this instead. There is no need to slot -KB IOs. Nobody is knocking you back while rooted, and there is no real reason not to run rooted these days. I would definitely pick up follow through. You have really bad single target damage without it, and it is one of the shining powers of the set in any case. Honestly there is much that I would do differently beyond! If you were adapting this from @PLVRIZR, I'll acknowledge that their goals are typically a bit different than mine. However, I'm confident you could get better overall defenses, better resists outside of Granite, and more damage with basically no downside with a thorough rework. You would gain a lot overall by steering away from incarnate softcap goals, and instead focusing on a broader base of "good stuff" across the board. I'll brew up my own version of this later when I have time and energy for comparison. : ) All brewed! Here is a build I cooked up for comparison. I based this off the rework I did for my own stone tanker when the buffs popped up. I'm certain there are further optimizations, but here are the highlights: Even without Physical perfection, it has better end management. Although S/L defense took a small hit (still above softcap), other defenses are actually higher, and resists are much stronger across the board. You actually have Psi resist to speak of too, which is fun. Hasten is in - much better rotations. Global recharge outside Hasten is the same. Almost twice as much slow resist. You have follow through. Your attacks do more damage across the board. They could do even more if we were to drop all pretense of balancing resists/defense, and proc them out more aggressively. The one thing we lost was Focused Accuracy. However, you already have perception resist, and you are capped to hit +3's (I aim for this with Alpha). You could benefit from a bit more global accuracy outside of level 50 content. Personally, I would drop Granite (find a slot somewhere to move the lotg) and replace it with focused accuracy instead. I get how Granite might be useful in emergencies, but this build will run really strong without it.

It's a great combo! Two very powerful sets on their own - all the better combined. I have a Nature/Ice Defender, so flip flopped, but the experience should be mostly the same. He's very tanky, and his blasts feel blastier than most due to the availability of extra procs. Really there is no type of content he isn't great at. Nature has such a diverse array of powerful buffs/debuffs, and cold is one of the least resisted damage types in the game. The build I run features: Softcap Ranged defense Capped S/L, with strong resists elsewhere as well. ~9 sec shy of perma hasten What I like most about this power combo in particular: Blizzard is a unique Nuke that gives you yet more area control, and allows openings from out of sight. Most of the time just jumping into melee with Entangling Aura is enough Defending for the fight. You can focus on blasting. Wild Bastion is a super strong panic button if things go south. Everything looks really cool and thematic. I have /Ice colored to be spores for my concept. Here is the build for reference: