Onlyasandwich

I looked at the totals in mids, and the ~6% gain in S/L is not a bad trade for missing incarnate cap a little on ranged. Sort of a coin flip in my book. I prefer a clean softcapped baseline. I would probably pull the endmod slot from stamina instead, possibly along with the numina unique to drop a Ribosome or two into deflection. This would depend on your feel for the end consumption of the build once you roll with it for a while. You could definitely chase more sl resist than I have here, but you'll end up with a lot of redundant melee defense and noticably less damage. Even without the ato proc rolling, you'd be hard pressed to find a situation that stresses your protection outside of maybe tanking lord recluse. For recluse, I'd just pop a few inspirations until the ato has stacked. That said, maybe there are some minor offensive compromises that could net us another 6 to 10 sl resist. This might be worth it.

This set is needed for incarnate softcap on ranged defense. I wouldn't recommend sacrificing that for a little sl. Ato procs will bring you to or close enough to 90, although there may be some slot jiggering I could do to find a free one or two to drop some resist into deflection.

I felt inspired and put together a build. This is incarnate softcap for ranged/melee/aoe, and still achieves high values for other resists across the board, especially when you hit OoTS. The weaker psi resist will be covered very well by your positional defense. Bash is muled - you can safely take it off your action bar except when exemping. Note the extra slot in Active Defense. This is so you can keep it double stacked almost all the time - especially important when facing defense debuffers, as you double up on the DDR. I love hover melee combat myself - not everyone does. It's great for positioning melee cones ideally, as you can hover just above and aim down while still in melee range. That extra bit of easy free defense really helps push the defense totals - I wouldn't recommend running without one of this or Combat Jumping. Flight pool serves our purposes very well here with three powers to mule positional defense bonuses. Afterburner also makes flight a dream for travel - try it if you haven't! This build is not even remotely end hungry. You really shouldn't need Energy mastery to help, and your accuracy is great with strong global bonuses on top. Shatter is a solid part of both your ST and AOE attack chain. This makes it a great spot for the other ATO set, so you have good up time on the absorb proc in a variety of scenarios. Note that all of your attacks here will do way more damage now that they are properly procced. You don't have to go all proc monster, but it is worth carefully considering where your most powerful procs will go and ensuring they make an impact. This includes the ATO procs as well. One excellent facet of War Mace is that is doesn't need an epic aoe at all. It has a full chain in whirling >crowd control >shatter, though shatter requires a little positioning. It's part of the charm. I recommend Musculature Radial for your Alpha. You can pick any Destiny that suits your taste. Rebirth is the only one that adds much to the build, giving you an active heal to pop.

It looks like you're going for a heavily resist focused build, while relying on Shield for the defense layer. You have a healthy does of +recharge in the midst as well. A few things I'd change upon first evaluation: You are missing the Steadfast defense IO! Get that sucker in there. You are still shy of softcap for ranged/aoe, and this will put you there. You may be happier in end-game content if you focused your slotting and power choices on pursuing the 56 defense incarnate softcap instead of the spread of resists you have achieved. Remember that you have built-in scaling damage resist that will kick in and help make up the difference. Don't forget the Shield Wall +Res IO and Reactive Def scaling +Res! These are both stronger and way more slot-efficient than other res bonuses you have. Jawbreaker is an excellent attack, and a pretty important part of your ST chain on WM. I would drop Pulverize in favor of it. I like to Slot the might of the tanker set here, as it gets a lot of use in the scenarios where the proc is most important, namely AV fights, where you will be able to reliably triple stack the proc. I'd either drop the second slot from build-up or replace it with a recharge. The tohit buff gaussian's and the set bonus aren't really doing anything for you here. Phalanx fighting is crazy overslotted to no great benefit. It's a great one slot wonder with a plussed out lotg. Only the per ally part is increased by enhancements, and you will seldom have allies close enough (this is radius 8, basically the range of your standard melee swings). Grant cover doesn't really need an extra slot. It's purpose is mainly existing for a lotg slot and adding DDR. If you choose to keep focused accuracy, I see no need to give it slots. It's primary use will be to help resist tohit debuffs. The base value you are enhancing is super low, and you aren't achieving any good set bonuses. Physical perfection has an endmod/acc in it. I wouldn't even bother with the extra slot (base value fairly low - biggest use is a spot for the perf shifter proc), but make it a straight endmod if you keep it. I hope this helps! If I get around to making a build, I'll definitely share. Take a look at some other shield and mace builds here on the tanker forums for comparison.

Can't go wrong!

It's a tanker in my book, mostly for the higher target cap. Poor brutes only have whirling mace to hit the whole crowd, while your crowd control knocks the whole spawn on its now very bruised rear.

My opinion on this. 100% silly to skip: - Accelerate Metabolism - Enervating Field - Lingering Radiation Really nice and I would suggest taking: - Radiant Aura - Radiation Infection (less useful high levels, godsend lower) - Choking Cloud (requires slotting love to shine) - EM Pulse (others rate this lower - I like it as a back pocket whoopsie everything is held now power - also basilisk's gaze is primo slot value) Still good, but easily skipped: - Mutation - it's a pretty good rez! Why do you need a Rez? - Fallout - This is absurdly powerful, but a little awkward/situational to use. Can be really fun and hilarious.

Cold is definitely an excellent Primary for this. My personal choice is Rad/sonic, and my build can be found in the thread Bastille Boy linked. - Cold offers a modest amount more resistance debuffing, a stronger but less consistent end tool, and a more convenient/animation friendly defensive option than Rad (I'm comparing RI to shields here). - Rad has a heal, strong -regen, recharge, and some other sundry tools in exchange. I actually really like choking cloud and EMP myself. Both are mighty fine options! Even if you go cold, the rad/sonic thread above has some great ideas for slotting your secondary.

WoC is just a mule for the purple set in my listed build, which helps cap Ranged defense. I only run it for fun when I feel like it. Functionally, it is only a toy that looks neat. This build does not have end problems at higher levels, and is perfectly manageable exemping, especially given that you have AM in addition to health uniques and slotted stamina. If you are exemped down far enough, there is of course a limit to your end management, but that is true of any build. This plays very smoothly from 1-50. I designed the build and levels of power picks with exemping in mind. You would definitely not run chocking cloud while GM hunting - it wouldn't do anything. It would be nice to have an achilles proc in RI for these situations, although the proc mechanics do not favor it in terms of up time. I did not have the spare slot in my version. RI is really only there for lower level content and really hard targets like GMs. You won't need it in other situations - just jump in with Choking cloud and go to town, hopping out to howl every now and then. Every attack other than dominate actually has pretty modest end redux in it as well. I believe I actually ended up going with Musculature radial instead of core for the extra buff for endmod on AM and stamina.

We had a great discussion on this a month or so ago, and I came out with a very satisfying softcap range build with strong resistances. Here is the thread, which includes a few different interesting builds:

I'm loving my new build so far! Flash arrow more than adequately bridges the softcap gap, and I feel like I have plenty of battlefield tools to address ambushes and adds as long as I stay focused. I've even been running ambush heavy AE maps to see how it rolls solo, and it's smooth as butter. Hot butter spattered on a large plate, but still a delight! So far I've only been running X8+2 though, since he's not 50 and fully built (45 so far). We'll see how he fares with mobs that resist flash arrow more strongly later. I'm still polishing my preferred order of debuffs. Without OSA or Glue arrow, they do tend to start scattering pretty quickly when solo. So far It's usually flash > glue or OSA > acid and disruption > aoe chain. I usually hold PGA and EMP in reserve for adds or extra mitigation if needed. They aren't often needed.

Here's my build! I've grown a bit tired of constantly reaching for Scorpion Shield, excellent power though it may be. Luminara has a great point regarding ambushes/spawns, but I would like to try to lean more on my debuffs for survival than simply floating on native defenses alone. It makes life a little more exciting! Why do I have all of these defensive powers to begin with if not to use them? The benefit to this approach is I have a little more leeway with slotting and can squeeze a few more damage procs in on important powers like OSA. Having capped S/L resist along with healthy energy resist is nothing to sneeze at either. These are harder to achieve through outside buffs than extra defense, and should layer very well with my debuffs. The only things I'm not really happy with in this build: - Since I rely on proactive debuffing to round out my defense, I am more susceptible to mez. But hey, EMP sort of does something useful here...sometimes! - I might actually have to use Snap shot at times, since I skipped Aimed. With ice arrow, blazing, ranged shot, and even fistful to fill in my ST, this probably won't be much of a problem. I focused on procs and maxing S/L resist while hitting enough S/L defense for Flash Arrow to roughly softcap me on averagely resistant mobs. Recharge wherever I can, but not at the expense of these. This is definitely a teaming build. I don't see this standing well in a solo farm without getting overwhelmed, though I'm sure it could go spawn to spawn just fine.

Yeah, that's a weird one. I've chosen it for thematic reasons before as well and had the same thought. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to have fiery crackles or poison gurgles on my attacks!

This is true of primary and secondary dark, but not soul mastery patron pool.

I would love the noir options for gloom and tentacles. It's an awesome pool, but I don't always want to shoot skulls!

Sorcery is used on squishies very often for rune of protection mostly. Brutes like RoP to reach that last bit to resist cap sometimes, especially on sets like rad armor or willpower that have another resist clickie they can rotate in. Mystic flight is also just flat out better than flight if the theme works for you and you aren't going after other flight powers. I used to pick experimentation pretty often just for jaunt, but less so now that we have combat teleport. The attacks are a little stronger and more proccable than other pool attacks, so can make a good supplement to an at lacking offense. I see people take the resist debuff from force of will, though it is probably less used overall. I haven't played with this pool much myself.

I've iterated a lot on this build, and have optimized the slotting a bit. No more muling brawl! Unfortunately, I've even lost a smidge of recharge in the process, in return for some underslotted powers like consume getting a little love, while maintaining my S/L softcap. In the process, I found some extra slots, and was able to drop RoP in favor of tactics (I really like the PM proc - RoP was just a free slot for it). I'm still not close to my recharge goals, but overall accuracy is much better with the addition of tactics. I'm not sure what else I can do to push recharge at this point without sacrificing softcap S/L!

I've been digging into a build to resurrect my old Fire/EM from live, and have drawn some inspiration from Camel's foundation. After playing with the EM buffs to level 47 so far, I've decided that Power Crash is pretty okay, but I'd rather have an epic AoE in the rotation for easy firing when standing in the middle of a crowd. Proccy Dark Obliteration is also a much more powerful attack. Burn and whirling hands don't feel like enough on their own, especially with a fairly low recharge build such as I have come to. I'd really appreciate any nitpicking you kind folks may see to be done on this! I hit S/L softcap, and somewhat redundantly softcap for melee as well. With no strong base to work off, I can't find a way to keep S/L softcap and pursue any useful amount of ranged defense without severely borking the power of my attacks. Like Camel, I'm a bit overslotted for S/L resist, especially accounting for ATO procs. I'd also love to find a way to get closer to perma hasten, and do all this without sacrificing softcap defenses. I would happily sacrifice melee softcap if need be - it is purely incidental. I'm also just a little shy of my ideal accuracy slotting on some powers, lacking strong global bonuses from purple sets. I'm hoping Kismet will do enough to bridge the gap. In any case, I keep banging my head on it, and this is what I end up with. I don't feel quite satisfied with it - mostly due to the weak global recharge. The goal I had in mind was at least 70% global recharge and/or somehow finding a way to get ranged defense to at least 33. Here it is:

Going typed defense and scorpion gives you more slotting flexibility in the rest of your build. You will either find it necessary baseline to achieve softcap, or be able to take advantage of the ability to slot more offensive ios, whether that means stacking recharge with purple sets, or heavily investing in procs.

Combat teleport does make life amazingly better for granite/rooted. I still think that granite is an awkward power, but so many people are invested in this playstyle for their stoners that I wouldn't want to ruin their fun by changing it significantly if at all. My main problems with it are that it is not customizable at all, and it is basically a power set into itself. I can't think of any other primaries where the tier 9 literally replaces most of the other powers. But this belabors a point that has been made repeatedly in this thread and others. Ultimately I would just like to see some moderate buffs to anti-granite that allow it to stand on its own without a lot of io shenanigans. To me that would look something like this: - remove rooted speed penalty. - add 16 ddr somewhere. - 25 percent slow resistance to brimstone - cut mud pots end usage in half - some sort of interesting utility. I think tohit debuff resistance in minerals would be a neat idea. Another would be adding some type of damage effect to brimstone - currently I rarely run this even as anti-granite! I think either a weak damage aura or a small amount of fire damage added to attacks could work - similar to bio's toxic damage The beauty here is that these sorts of buffs don't much affect the balance of granite itself. The only things on this list that help granite are mud pots end cut and rooted speed, which is pretty hard to justify on any level anyhow. This makes it actually sort of interesting choice between granite and regular stone mode. Do you want to resist some really annoying debuffs and cover your psi hole while doing respectable damage, or be a thick brick with over the top raw defensive power?

Is there a reason people stash on ah bids instead of global mail? Just convenience?

I think non granite would be pretty solid with just a little beef on defensive values, or maybe just higher debuff resistance, along with killing the rooted speed penalty. Meanwhile it can be fixed with ios and combat teleport. I also think it's pretty. Even with a great io build, I'll grant that it doesn't do anything special. No extra damage, no end tools, no interesting debuffs or self buffs. The closest thing would simply be its strong psi defense, which is a nice advantage, but not huge considering other high end io builds can plug their psi hole well enough while still retaining their special advantages. I'm liking my build at 50. It's tough against any content and realizes my character's background better than another primary would. I think granite is a silly power, but don't know how I would change it.

Yes indeed, this bind combo is such a pleasure to use! Just click on teammate and port over to take aggro. Pop on to next group with easy target instant engage. Reposition on the fly for cones. Life is good.

I added taunt in my revised build. It is great for the set bonus and I missed its utility for sure. Second post in the thread if you feel the urge to provide input! Aggro tanking works, but mobs have a little mini flee pretty often, and accuracy can at times be an issue on certain mobs. Although I am anti granite, I am not anti taunt! I did look at your thread when making my build, hyperstrike. I'm glad there are others who appreciate the beauty of stone outside granite!

With the new issue, I've specced this build into combat teleport and it is truly a delight! I still think rooted needs a buff, but I don't mind it at all now that I can zip around instantly wherever I need on the combat field. This also makes frost oh so much simpler to set up again mid battle. There is great joy in porting to an ally in danger and being able to knock off an aoe to grab nearby attention before the dominos start falling. Using regular teleport in this way usually led to a late arrival and frustration. So yeah - give combat teleport a try if you haven't! I'll have a hard time passing it up on any of my melees.