Onlyasandwich

It is certainly useful! On most of my builds these days, I find building towards defense softcap a bit too limiting. It is still a very good and valid build focus, however. If you get adds, there are other strategies, especially with storm: Reserve backup controls like thunder clap and flash to pop on incoming. Mega spam your storm powers (Tornado, LS, Freezing Rain) so you have constant elements disrupting mobs, regardless of what is currently active. Hurricane chaos. Pop Hurricane and start running in circles, tagging everything in sight. Let your summons/pseudopets handle the damage and cleanup. As long as you resummon, you'll find they chew things down over time when you are going wild with hurricane.

I'd consider living on the edge and ignoring defense. What are your controls for, after all? Illusion is especially well suited to this with permanent pa. You'll then be much more free to juice recharge and squeeze procs into every corner. You can still layer some solid resists with this shift in focus. Defense takes more dedicated slotting.

Yes. It's separated into the Creeper Carrion Vine and Patch. These are the two psuedo pets summoned by the creepers power. You'll see Carrion Creeper Patch Entangle (the brambly patch effect that appears) represents the damage this pet actually does by itself. The various procs have their own entries on this list. You can see that even one proc contributes a huge amount more damage than the patch itself. Carrion Creeper Vine Vine Smash represents the damage this aspect of the pets do (the Big smashy vine thing that smacks things). You'll see entries for procs here also show the procs do way more damage than the power itself. Immob procs don't trigger on this aspect - only targeted aoe. This is the big reason why targeted aoe procs are the first priority. You can look at it more simply this way: Carrion Creepers power (all the pseudo pets that make it up) by itself does ~1562 damage by itself. Really good! Even only one targeted aoe proc all by itself contributes almost twice that! Add all the procs, and procs (not the power itself) are doing ~5000 damage. Carrion Creepers + Carnifax's slotting = absolutely face-melting damage. The way these pets work, this increases quickly the denser your mobs are, as each element has a small aoe that can overlap, and the pets summoned are in proportion to mob density.

They tested the contribution of different procs slotted in creepers a while back. These are the two pseudo pets that creepers summons. The breakdown you see is the damage contribution of the power itself alongside the procs. Targeted aoe procs are transformative here. Immob procs put in good work as well, though not as much.

If you want easiest, hard to go wrong with sr. Simplest to build, functionally immortal in most content. Sr leaves you a ton of room to more flexibly slot your secondary. Ideal for proccy builds. Stone and invuln have more overall potential. You can softcap defenses, and have healthy resists to build off. I find non granite stone to be a better balance, as it handles psi well enough without io support, and it has a few offensive bonuses (brimstone proc, recharge bonus).

But the most fun part of the game is making builds! 😃 Oh, that's just me? Some people actually like playing their 50's instead of brewing a new alt?

Good call out! Traps always slips my mind. I need to brew up a satisfying concept to give it some love.

I'm glad you're giving it a shot! It's a super fun combo. This build has a lot of things that I would improve. Your end numbers are decent though, yes! That being said, even 2+ net end/sec will be eaten quickly, and you'll need to pace yourself. More importantly, you are neglecting the damage tools that these sets give you. Of note: No Damage enhancement for Lightning storm. Only token damage slotting for your ST hold. Foregoing proc opportunities in Seeds. Ignoring the epic aoe in bile spray. Carrier creepers benefits immensely from targeted aoe procs instead of straight damage slotting. No damage slotting in tornado. Your powers are all very underslotted for accuracy, and many will only have a 50-60% chance against +3's. Your mids totals are inflated by Combat teleport, Gaussian proc, soulbound proc, and the proc in weaken resolve. A lot of this may be personal preference/playstyle, which is okay of course! However, you can do so much more with these powers. I wouldn't want you to miss the euphoric potential of true storm godhood! It's an aggressive, sometimes messy combo, but few things compare in terms of absolute mayhem, damage, and control. Once you get the hang of it, you can keep it really clean too - no need to make a mess unless you really want one. 🙂 Some major elements that aren't doing much: Every slot in Freezing Rain. It doesn't benefit very much from procs, and you haven't given it any recharge love. ATO set in Seeds. The totals for this set, other than arguably S/L, aren't serving any useful build goals. Spirit tree is a pretty weak power to begin with. It looks pretty and can be fun, but I would skip entirely. The bonuses from the full purple set in fly trap aren't really doing anything for you. Weaken resolve isn't very useful, especially the slots within. You'd be much better off with an actual blast, or even using your T1 immob as a blast. There isn't much need to enhance heal or absorb on hibernate. I assembled my own take on the combo. I actually like your epic pool choice! Water Spout is great, and hibernate is really useful on this combo, despite Shark Skin overcapping Cold resist and wasting some potential there. Controller (Plant Control - Storm Summoning).mbd Text version: Some highlights: Good slow resist to keep you on the go. Good recharge totals, with FFback to supplement. Solid baseline resists across the board, with Rune to back you up when needed. Rune is also really useful to pop you out of a mez mess. Enough baseline defense to floor hit chance with hurricane running. Also I have hurricane. For one slot, it solves a lot of situations, and is oh so much easier to use on a controller with an aoe immob. It's super useful solo, and can be good on teams. Don't need to run it all the time, but it will save the day when necessary. Optimized Damage! You have: Single target handled readily with your hold > Arcane Bolt when drilling down a hard target. Life is obnoxious as solo controller without some ST focus when needed. Aoe from your Creepers, Bile, Water Spout, procced Seeds in your opener, fly trap, roots, and even Lightning Storm and Tornado can mix it up. These are all very powerful damage tools. The Energy font proc is especially nice in roots, as it will proc super often with the large aoe constant spam, which you want to be doing. I highly encourage you to try a flight power for this combo as here. Strategic Lightning storm positioning is one important element (up above the spawn causes LS to KD. I like to angle it up/behind a little bit to knock them a little towards me). Another is just being able to take a moment from above to look upon the wackiness below. 😄 With Mystic Flight, you can still teleport if you want. You might think my lightning storm slotting a bit odd, but it covers some bases- Suitably enhanced damage, endredux, recharge, along with some set bonuses that serve build goals. Procs that go off on the lightning bolts! That's right, the lightning bolts themselves can proc both ranged damage and smashing. It is actually a very respectable improvement. LS is a huge source of damage. I sometimes even put the purple proc here, but opted to keep it alive in the hold. Some powers here are mules or less often used, but still come into play on occasion. Snow storm is mostly a mule, but when you have the end at hand (teams, perhaps if you go ageless), it can help, as you won't floor recharge with FR alone. Gale is interchangeable with O2 boost. O2 can be nice for demezzing teammates, especially after they use a wakie. The end drain protection can be relevant. I actually like a non KD slotted Gale as a "Go over here now" button for an entire spawn when needed. This can be useful to blow a spawn into a wall > immob > go to town. Spore Burst can shut down an add, but is usually held in reserve. The heal proc can be nice to weave in when you're taking chip damage. Could easily swap it for a one slot wonder like O2 or maybe spirit tree if you want. The tornado has a tendency to wake your sleepy foes anyhow. All aoes of course enjoy a tight mob density. You have here some very particular powers that increase greatly in potential if you pack them in close together! Tornado is actually a small aoe. Lightning storm bolts can hit up to 5 targets. Carrion Creepers Spawn new psuedopets based on targets in their radius, and ramp up in damage very quickly in larger mobs. The big tool you have solo for this is aoe immobilize > hurricane fun. Once the immob is in place, you can tie them up with a bow, pack 'em in tight, and they'll stay put as long as you keep immobing. All the while, they can't hit you as they are debuffed to hell from hurricane, flopping like a fish due to FR, or just trying to shoot each other from Seeds. This isn't really worth doing on teams, but it really lets you more efficiently chew down large spawns solo, and accomplish feats you might think out of range for a squishy controller. Note that my build does have FFback procs toggled on, so detoggle them to review more realistic recharge totals.

Storm is always a good solo enabler, as it brings lots of damage and extra mitigation to the package. TA is strong for similar reasons.

I would vendor the commons and post the rest on ah for 5 inf quick sale. Most aren't worth a lot, and no need to fiddle with the details. The more valuable ones will still have "good enough" bids to catch and they'll give you inf immediately. As a bonus, posting less desired io recipes is healthy for the market, as it feeds those out there playing the converter game, which stabilizes price for other iOS.

Both are great. Beyond some of the good points already made, Controllers have another advantage. Symphony wants to be spamming as much of the primary as possible for echos from reverberant. On a controller, you could do this all day without much opportunity cost. Choose a low maintenance secondary like cold and you're good to go. On a dom, this playstyle wouldn't afford much time to use your secondary. On the other hand, domination enhanced symphony controls are great! You can't go wrong with either.

For pure DPS, some classic all-stars would be: Fire/electric blaster. Fire/fire is great too, but /electric offers some better DPA melee attacks and utility in the secondary. Plant/fire Dominator. Not too far behind the blaster when properly built, and much more survivable with permadom. One of my all time favorite characters period. EM/stone stalker or scrapper. Bogglingly good single target, with more aoe than you'd think. For "tanking with some dps" any tank will do. If by "tank" you just mean survival, and not aggro control, my answer might include some others. However, tanks are so solid these days that almost any combo will do. Some stand-outs include: Axe or WM/Rad armor. Good ST, outstanding aoe, with even more aoe from Rad. Endless endurance to fuel the machine, and very hard to kill. Axe is skewed more ST, WM more aoe. EM/Bio or really anything Bio is good for optimal damage builds. I find bio just a bit fiddly, and have to be in the right mood for it personally. Stone/Super strength is really great! Go no granite and you can be super survivable and still benefit from brimstone procs. Rage gives you more slotting freedom to proc up your secondary for more damage. As a bonus, here is my personal Plant/fire dom. 🙂 No need for softcap shenanigans. Just resist with Rune when needed, and aggressive controls that do great damage on top of your blasts. Carrier Creepers can melt whole spawns mostly on its own, and you have a load of backup options when needed. Even so, all you typically need for safety is a good application of Seeds. Even seeds is applying a decent alpha shot with procs! Dominator - Plant Control - Fiery Assault mk2.mbd

Plant/storm is one of the best controller combos out there, though incredibly thirsty. Earth/storm is more visually overwhelming than about any character you can make. Storm does a great job bringing damage to an otherwise slow soloer as well. They don't work against each other at all. Kd enhancements do the trick, and the AOE immob on any controller is enough by itself if you can find the end to spam it. Once mobs are immobilized, the repel in hurricane lets you bunch them up nicely as well.

Here is my full build: Blaster (Psychic Blast - Ninja Training).mbd Slotting for Scramble is: Superior Frozen Blast: Damage/Endurance/Accuracy/RechargeTime Superior Frozen Blast: Recharge/Chance for Immobilize Ragnarok: Damage/Recharge/Accuracy (+5 boosted) @twozerofoxtrot is using a 5 slot of the Ragnarok set.

Here's the most recent version for my fire/fire. Blaster (Fire Blast - Fire Manipulation).mbd This one has some advantages for ease of use: Evasive+Hover is very smooth and easy to control. No cones. You just shoot into combat and pop off your rotation. Once you have all your defenses online and Bonfire going, you can do this pretty well without actually dying. Phoenix is there to erase any mistakes if you do. 😄 That leaves you with just finding the best ways to bind your aoes (for the location targeted ones, use powexeclocation Target powername) and aim/buildup. Otherwise, just pop your single target powers on 1-4 and go to town. Note that this isn't a softcap build. I have ranged defense built to a meaningful base - only a purple away from softcap if needed. This is supplemented by strong resists. The big enabler is Bonfire of course. You're also basically immune to slows! It is a rather expensive build, but at least doesn't rely on any pricey HOs. You will need to toggle on hotfeet when on the ground, but it stays on while flying. Most mobs are slowly running away while you do your aoe combo, so any potshots go through ranged defense. By the time you've finished your rotation, the stragglers are taken out quickly by your outstanding single target tools.

Basically a dark/dark corruptor will already be flooring enemy hit chances, so the extra values from defender are less useful. The tar patch advantage to defender is meaningful, but I don't think bridges the damage gap solo. Both are great! To me it's as coin flip.

@Carnifax pointed out in my thread on the Scrapper forums that I should consider making my Staff/Stone a Stalker, and I agree! It's hard to pass up on: Better single target with assassin's staff. Built-in staff form without a power pick. A little extra defense from hide. Actual build up power. While losing only: A little edge on proccable aoe with no innocuous strikes. Mudpots. Aww, I like mudpots. My priorities here are the same: Stack slow resist. Hit close enough to softcap in S/L/E/N/P, and pump F/C as high as I can without sacrificing too many procs. Layer as much extra S/L resist on the side as I can. Max hit chance against +3's. Not rely on epic attacks. The theme of the day is Staff, baby! Making bulleted lists. Some questions in mind: Do you think the Fury -Res proc is worth it in Guarded versus a damage proc in situations outside of Pylon testing? What rotation do you like to use with Staff? Where do you spend your perfection most of the time - Eye or Sky Splitter? Am I even thinking about this correctly? Perhaps it builds so quickly the answer is "both." Does enhancing Heal in Geode increase its HP before breaking? I've heard some folks say it hardly holds up long enough to be worth even taking in +4 content. How useful do you find this power? I'm pretty happy with the sets/totals overall. However, if you see any easy shifts that serve my stated goals, or if you feel any of these goals are misguided, I'd love the input! The slots in Placate especially could easily be shifted elsewhere if needed, though the set bonuses are excellent for this build. In the past, I've avoided Placate on my stalkers, but really want to give the buffs to it a solid shot this time around. Note that I have two FFback procs toggled on here, so detoggle to see more realistic recharge totals. Stalker (Staff Fighting - Stone Armor).mbd

Thanks, @Carnifax! Stalker does seem pretty appealing here. Innocuous has pretty great DPA procced out, but Assassin's Staff is a big deal for sure. I would miss Mud Pots as well, but the extra little defense and mule slot from Hide helps softcap and provides a bit of freedom. Hmm. I can see where the smooth crack crack of Mercurial > Precise to build perfection would feel good and be a strong chain opener. On a stalker, I'd sort of want to try the (not so newly buffed) Placate though, so would need a bit of power room. I've disregarded Placate in previous stalkers, and @Frosticus's advocacy has inspired me to give it a fair shake! Mocking Beratement is also a pretty amazing set for this combo. With high recharge totals, Precise > Serpent's should be a good opener, though not available at the lowest levels. The DPA is about the same across the board, but Serpent's may not feel as nice given the higher activation. I threw together a build and yeah - Stalker it is! The package is just more cohesive. Guarded Spin is not a 1:1 sub for Innocuous, but it'll do, and I might get some occasional benefit from the Lethal pad. It looks like it basically comes with Form of Body baked in without taking a power pick - even better! No flexibility to pop into Soul or Mind, but I can build around that.

Staff looks neat, but it gets a pretty bad rap for its long animation times and overall mediocre DPA attacks. I've been continually searching for a concept that fit, and think I've found just the mark! @Carnifax's ice/stone Stalker got me caught on running up a stone armor character that gets to use Geode. I've only run it on a tanker so far. Do you think Staff deserves its reputation? It trades a build up power for some pretty neat effects, and I don't have to waste animation time on build up. Not too bad, really! The next step is making a character that I don't mind watching while it twirls in one place for five minutes 😄 Have I committed any cardinal staff sins here? I'd love to know if my power selection especially misses any obvious gems, and would as always appreciate any slotting insight you have to offer. What I have in mind: Stack slow resist. Hit close enough to softcap in S/L/E/N/P, and pump F/C as high as I can without sacrificing too many procs. Layer as much extra S/L resist on the side as I can. Max hit chance against +3's. Not rely on epic attacks. The theme of the day is Staff, baby! I like to squeeze in FFback to my ST and aoe attack cycles where possible, and Staff has some pretty great opportunities for this. Even though I'm leaning on Focused Accuracy to enable my proc strategy to a degree, end management should be decent enough even at lower levels with Geode and Staff Mastery to help if needed in a pinch. At higher levels, Conserve Power and all the FFback firing should keep me rolling in the blue well enough. I'm a little concerned about ST punchiness. Sky Splitter is decent, and actually really nice when empowered by a Form, but otherwise I'm filling with ~200ish DPA attacks between Precise Strike and Serpent's Reach. Serpent's Reach probably isn't really necessary for a smooth chain given that innocuous is actually similar DPA, but it presents a good IO set for the build, and having range is convenient. Speaking of Geode - does enhancing Heal here increase the HP on the geode before breaking? Do you get much use out of the power itself? Build: Note that I have my two FFbacks toggled on here, and all forms disabled. Scrapper (Staff Fighting - Stone Armor).mbd

Here's an alternate version that hits softcaps more cleanly if that is a priority. Sacrifices proc potential in Zapp, but comes out ahead on some more bonuses in Frozen Aura. Stalker (Ice Melee - Stone Armor).mbd

Looking like some nice improvements, Carnifax! I put together how I would approach it with the same power choices. Some broad differences: Modest improvement in slow resist. Leveraging procs in a few more powers for a good increase in damage. I did end up keeping frost with the ATO set. It's a solid enough vanilla attack even for ST filler, and it's otherwise sort of awkward to leverage the buildup proc in ice. .34 end/sec more. Your new build has improved here, but it's still pretty tight. Fighting pool is always a bit of a tax! A modest edge in resists, while maintaining very similar defense totals. Ultimately they are very close in general approach. I like that your second build doubles down more on S/L resist than the first. I've found stone a bit squishy without paying attention to some good baseline totals here. Note that I have toggled on Quick form, toggled off Build up and its accompanying proc. Stalker (Ice Melee - Stone Armor).mbd Build:

Welcome back, Carnifax! I get the same errors, but have taken to going to Build sharing > open share menu > copy/paste the text in the window rather than hitting export. My errors pop up when I try to export, but I can otherwise access the data here. Power choices are on point! I wouldn't pick any differently myself. I'm of a mind that softcapping the types that hit high resist on stone isn't a top priority, so I'm with you there as well. You have a good defensive spread. Some first impressions: Full Gaussian in Build Up doesn't seem to be doing much for you. I'd drop it and go proc/one recharge. Can +5 IOs in weave with no exemping penalty as they are PVP set. The full red fortune in Minerals is pretty marginal. Can go lotg global +def/end and def red fortune. Consider keeping the ATO buildup proc all by itself somewhere and ditching the rest of the set. You could instead proc out frost for much higher damage. 3 Slot Frozen blast + some procs would be nice. If you find yourself short on acc with any of the above changes, a kismet can easily make up the difference. Endurance is very tight at only 1.41 positive with Super Jump disabled! Performance shifter in Crystal armor, miracle in health, 1-2 endmods in stamina would go a long way. Any slots you free with the above, consider: Full PM in Earth's Embrace. It's well-enhanced now, but the set bonuses here would be meaningful for the build. Consider Aegis 4 slot in tough (psi unique included). This doubles down on S/L resist, helps psi, and gets you closer to softcap on F/C. With this, I'd consider dropping the avalanche set from Frozen Aura for Armageddon. It's a shame not to use the purple proc somewhere. KD proc for the fifth bonus in Ball lightning. The mitigation is pretty decent from this too. 4th slot in brimstone for more S/L

It's one of the strongest and smoothest mastermind combos available to this day.

The most flexible proc-bomber is going to be a SR Tanker, for several reasons: You need very few slots, and no real IO support to reach maximum defensive potential. You have built-in recharge, as well as lots of lotg opportunities so you can push recharge without affecting proc chance. That's it - what more do you want? Any proctastic secondary will do. The only problem you will need to solve for to some degree is end management, which shouldn't be a great challenge with all the extra slots SR gives you to play with. Second place would be a Time Defender with power build-up epic power. You have: Same slot efficient defense solution (PBU+Farsight). Farsight gives you more leeway for hit chance on your proccable powers so you rely less on tactics and global acc bonuses, leaving you more flexible in jamming procs. Yet again - built-in +recharge. You get all the fun utility and debuffs of Time on top. This isn't proc related - it's just good. : ) Absolutely there are plenty of other viable options, but these stand out. Fortunatas are also a good contender here.

It's worth noting that, due to the nature of the psuedopets that creeper summons and what powers they use, slow procs do very little. Targeted aoe procs do immensely more damage in the power - load up on those first. Immob procs are a distant second, but still worth a slot if you have one to spare. I highly recommend slotting up Creepers with 3 Targeted aoe procs, and re-evaluating your preference on the power thereafter. It will melt entire spawns on its own very quickly. The denser the spawn, the more overlap between pseudopet powers and proc effectiveness. I slot it: Artillery acc/dam/rech Bombardment acc/dam/rech Bombard, posi, javelin proc Hunter proc