Gulbasaur

They can hit 45% defences, which back before the IO power creep was Tanker-tier levels of protection. That's what I meant, really. IO sets have flattened a lot of the differences in archetypes, particularly at end-game. The epic ATs were once unique in being able to do decent ranged damage and also survive decently well. Now, it's fairly easy to build up defences on an archetype with no armour set that once a tanker would have been jealous of. Support sets used to have a much stronger role in the game, but now a lot of what they achieved can be done solo through procs and bonuses. What I'd really like to see is some enemy groups that work against the AoE dogpile meta - give up enemies that you have to mez (like in the Hamidon encounter) and enemies that get stronger when you tightly pack them all on or have stacking AoE debuffs. There needs to be an option for every playstyle, while at the moment the end game is very strongly stacked towards AoE damage, no knockback, no healers needed gameplay and that's fine for sometimes but there needs to be an option B as well, partly for build and playstyle diversity but also it's a bit stale.

I feel the same way about Kheldians... they're fun to level but when you factor in incarnates and IO sets, there's just nothing that really sets them aside. Back before IOs, they were unique in that they could do damage from range and also tank. Now, we've got blasters that can do that.

Mind, Dark and Gravity spring to mind if you want good sets that pick up quickly. Mind is practically a blast set and because it has an early AoE sleep arguably works better solo. Dark has a very useful debuff and is basically Mind: Now With Pets. Gravity is similarly blasty and has some very powerful panic button powers. Illusion is a classic strong soloer, but is very reliant on high recharge. Time, rad, dark and (later) storm are very strong solo secondary. Time and radiation are both good all-rounders. Dark is a very strong defensive set and gives you a second pet with some powerful debuffs. Storm takes a while to get going but when it's up and running, it is a very good offensive set, but suffers from the same focus on high recharge. Poison is pretty strong. If you can afford one fairly expensive IO, Contagious Confusion turns the confuse toggle in the epic power pool into something very, very defensive. It's very inconsistent, but when it goes off it's a thing of beauty.

I've been ninja-running my way round Praetoria recently on my stalker. It gives you a lot more appreciation for zone design and also it's fun to boing from roof to roof. I've got the jump pack for those rare occasions where I need more lift. Paragon City has better windows and ledges, though. The piston boots costume piece has a special animation on jumping, so you could pass them off as assistive technology. The rocket boots do something similar for flight with little jets of fire shooting out the bottom. I did pick up the void skiff for the P2W vendor for when I have to deal with Grandville (you can technically navigate it without superjump or flight, but it's so convoluted that I just don't want to) on my Science (or Technology? Can't recall) rad/rad stalker - my rationale is that I can overload my suit to produce a hard-light construct that allows for flight but not much else, which explains why all the toggles drop. All natural/tech choices - the medicine pool works well on a high-defence build because you're less likely to be interrupted. Experimentation is pretty tech-based and Toxic Dart can crit from Hidden. The upper-tier Leadership powers are actually both pretty good - Vengeance is an excellent "oh no, it's all going wrong" power and does save the day when a team gets overwhelmed and the other one is a decent enough endurance boost on a stupid timer. They're both good one-slot wonders, too.

Placate can be more or less replaced by the Chance to Hide ATO - put it in your Assassin's Strike power and it will hide you in combat, allowing you to double-stack your criticals. I don't take it. I think Tough and Weave are a bit of a trap, unless you are having trouble surviving. Do they solve a problem you have or are they just insurance? Personally, I think Recall Friend is always a good choice as a level 49 one-slot wonder, particularly if you team with lowbies at all. The P2W versions are great but sometimes actually being able to stealth in and airdrop a tanker is really handy.

Attuned IOs scale with your level. The easiest (and frequently cheapest) way to get them is to just buy them from the auction house. The ATOs are are two sets of specific enhancements for each archetype, each set having one "special effect" enhancement. Most are pretty good, but the stalker ones are both very strong, adding quite substantially to the amount of damage you can do.

Dark/Dark hands down. Having a control aura as well as a taunt aura is great - you're not just controlling aggro to keep your teammates safe, you're controlling enemies to keep your teammates safe while you goes head to head with the bosses.

I really, really dislike the snakefest at the start. They aren't the most compelling enemy group, in my opinion, and the repetitive missions cast the Rogue Isles' content in a bad light. I'm currently working through the Praetorian early game story arcs and they are so much better than the early redside nonsense. Yes, they do repeat a bit, but you don't have three contacts in a row giving you practically identical missions. I'm going to run this character up to incarnates and work on a smaller Praetorians story guide, then I'll crack on with the level 50 one as there's a buttload of really good content at top levels that I think people miss because it's such a mess.

I have to say I'm really enjoying rad/rad at the moment working through the Goldside story arcs. It's just very... smooth? Nothing fancy, nothing flashy - just steady, fuss-free combat. Rad melee has a heal early on, which is helpful, and rad armour has good endurance management from the get-go. There are two AoE attacks build into rad armour, which I'll get to eventually, but at the moment I'm really just enjoying not worrying about endurance and being sturdy enough at low levels to not have to stop and rest every two fights.

Thanks Tidge. I did some tests on Beta... Toxic Dart does crit for the full damage, meaning as well as damage over time is gives you the full whack of damage as a crit. If you're looking for a low-level ranged attack, you could do worse. Corrosive Vial does not crit and is a patch and therefore very annoying as it makes enemies run around unless you can lock them in place. Also, I may have encountered a bug(?) that let me pick up Radiation Siphon at level 8, which is quite nice. The wiki says I shouldn't have it for a while.

Thank you for this! Enjoying it immensely.

I've rolled a rad/rad stalker and, well, it's totally rad. I've had a rad/rad brute before and a few stalkers and this one just hits the sweet spot. I'm going to skip the Ancilliary/Patron pools because they're all a bit indifferent, so I'm looking at regular power pools. I'm planning on going deep into the Presence and Experimentation pools (as well as something with some Defence, although I'm not looking for 45% because by end game teammates usually vomit defence buffs all over the place so I don't need to be self-sufficient). The Experimentation pool has two ranged attacks, both of which have a High DoT that I assume will deliver a lot of upfront damage if it does crit. Can anyone tell if it works from Hidden? This got me wondering is there are any others that do/don't.

"Actual" defence is calculated off the highest stat that's relevant - e.g. if a melee attack does smashing and fire damage, then the game will look at your melee, smashing and fire defence scores and pick the one you have the highest core on and only use that. Smashing and lethal damage are the types you see most often and they are also piggy-backed onto other types - an attack could do massive energy damage and a teeny tiny bit of lethal damage, but if the lethal defence percentage is higher then that's the only one the game cares about. For that reason, it's generally advised to try to build up either melee, AoE and ranged defence (because that covers almost everthing) or smashing and lethal (because they're so common). There's a very, very small number of attacks that don't count as melee, AoE or ranged and don't do smashing or lethal damage. They're almost all psi-based, which is why there are so many IO enhancements that specifically protect you from psi damage. tldr: Focus on your positional defences or smashing and lethal if you want to make the most of it. Which one is "better" depends on your powerset and build as a whole.

I've tanked incarnate AVs. You can get pretty tanky. Debuffs make your taunts more effective.., they're part of the threat calculation thing. Debuff procs seem to help me get and keep aggro. I've successfully pulled aggro off brutes in the past. Yup yup! I tank regularly with my fortunato, but safety comes at a cost of speed in a big way.

I remember back in the day it was shown that it gives you more XP overall by speeding up combat significantly. It's also the best hard-carry control effect if you're dragging level 2s into incarnate missions because that's maniacal overconfidence is the real endgame. I do like Mass Confusion as a power, but the cooldown makes it somewhat problematic. There's also that the current meta makes control effects less valuable. What I'd really like to see is some anti-facetanking measures like enemies with strong, stackable debuff auras that give mezzes more value - like the Hamidon buds that you have to hold, but, like, everywhere.

I love dark. It's very strong, even if a lot of the mitigation comes from the control auras. It's very, very team friendly as a result.

The Presence pool is something I keep looking at and like in theory but find hard to make space for in practice. I think I do with the ATO fear proc what you do with Invoke Panic. In fact, I like Leadership and Presence as pools generally - the two leadership long cooldown powers are good value and the upper tier Presence powers are pretty great. I sort of wish we had a "blank slate" AT for power pool gameplay but it's hard to pull off without very purposefully gimping yourself. I know what you mean with the rest of it - In task forces and stuff, I have had to point out that I'm either fine or dead and I'll tell you if I'm dead.

To be honest, I think all the survival IOs are worth slotting. Steadfast Protection (cheap) and Gladiator's Armour (expensive) Damage Resistance Slot +3% defence - 3% is excellent value for a single slot. Unbreakable Guard Damage Resistance Slot +7.5% hit points Reactive Defences Defence Slot +3-13% scaling damage resistance this gets higher as you lose hit points and synergises with widows' abilities well Shield Wall Defence Slot 5% damage resistance very good value for a single slot Preventative Medicine Healing Slot Chance for Absorb shield the chance increases as you lose hit points - again, has good synergy for widows' scaling resists and I basically use it as a warning system to when I start having to pay attention to my health Panacea Healing Slot Chance for small (5%?) heal this also does the same for endurance and is worth taking for that reason alone The psi-specific ones have much less value to widows who tend to have a lot of psi resistance. How high are your positional defences? I only really think 30% is necessary for most gameplay unless you're specifically trying to solo +4x8 content all the time. Remember that teammates will often top you up and when you hit the incarnate levels you'll get about +50% from teammates half the time.

As always, @tidge gives insightful advice. Personally, I think widows can safely drop the Fighting pool. Defence isn't a problem and damage resistance isn't as much of a problem as it looks like as widows have sliding resists that don't show up correctly in the build designer. I'd sooner put the slots in smoke grenade for some whole-team mitigation.

Sorry, thread resurrecting a bit here. My experience is that poor tanking is just as bad as poor knockback. The number of times I've laid out a load of debuff or DPS patches and the tank has decided to lead all the enemies out of them is too much to count! Storm is mostly knockdown due to the low mags, anyway. That said, I've even annoyed myself with my peacebringer.

I like how you presented the guide! Very clear and I'm 100% going to rip off the style of it in future. Blasphemer! Fear is basically a pulsing Hold. For a single slot, it's very potent for whole-team damage mitigation. I actually really like this power - it's very proc-friendly and the Fear ATO proc was made to go in a power like this. Because of the (relative) fragility of widows, a lot of their damage mitigation comes from control and being able to fear 25% of a group of enemies very regularly is a huge boon. I'd say the same thing about the Confuse powers - I'd consider them essential, but that's very much a playstyle thing. Being a controller with tanking capacity is a fortunata's whole shtick so I think it's a good idea to lean into it. I'd debate this unless you're chasing recharge, which I think is less mandatory than many people assume - I think I only had one purple IO apart from the ATOs until recently. Great guide!

I think you can skip the first ones but I might be wrong.

CT: Defensive is basically free defence, in my opinion. It's a good buff, but it's also somewhere to shove a few IOs in if you want the bonuses. I think it's worth taking, although maybe not as a priority. CT: Offensive is so small in the grand scheme of things - accuracy is not a problem from the mid-levels onwards. You can safely take it while levelling and then drop it out later.

I'd add a few polys to the head model to round out the pointy, pointy faces slightly. I'd also like it if the textures were more consistent... some are very cartoony, some are literal low rez photos. This seems particularly bad with clickies. It's not the resolution that's the issue, it's the lack of a consistent art style in some of the early game resources.

If you want to try out sonic, they pair quite well with masterminds - defence buffs are ten-a-penny, so being able to massively buff resistance is very useful. As long as you can keep the -res aura where you need it you've got an army of indestructible chainsaw minions