Gulbasaur

It urgently needs a "less incessant twirling" option.

I'd argue that the thing that needs fixing about Mind is that Fear effects don't trigger Containment critical hits. Mind is a good blasty set, but the cone Fear doesn't give much benefit so it's sort of skippable. It still soloes very well. I ran a Mind controller on the very early days before the inherent power was added to the game - it was good, but then expectations changed and the meta changed. Sonic and Force Field are both clearly defined sets with +res/-res and +def/knockback as their gimmicks... only other sets all do it better and part of it was power creep. Force Field was edged out by IOs and the playerbase's obsession with knockback bad while tanking in the middle of a room and not using the environment to gain an advantage [Gulbasaur mutters incoherently for twenty minutes about the declining standards of tanking] and Sonic was largely eclipsed by sets added in City of Villains. Other sets provide resistance buffs with a broader toolkit and other sets provide stronger -res debuffs... with a with a broader toolkit. Peacebringers really do need a "modernisation" pass. In the time before IOs, mage-tanks were unique. Now blasters can swan in with their bling bling builds with 45% defence and resists. They're solid tanks, but their damage powers are either nukes or very under-tuned. They are great to level and are a Flashbacker's dream because of how well they downscale, but at endgame their niche is suddenly crowded out.

I've out-tanked brutes on my fortunata. Adding control to very high defence and cappable resistances really does make a difference. Even with a 5% chance to hit and 85% damage resistance, control turns the enemy hit rate down to zero which means tankiness can go a lot further. Kheldians are occasionally looked down upon as being underwhelming in the post-IO world, but Dwarf Form is mathematically one of the best resistance tanks through the mid-20s and hold aggro fine (they have a punchvoke on all dwarf attacks, plus a taunt, plus debuffs have an aggro modifier). Peacebringers are self-healing, self-buffing and very self-sufficient. Low defence, but you can build anything for softcap so that's a moot point. Warshades put out more damage in large spawns but falter against bosses. For either of them, sitting at 85% resistances is fairly trivial because of how broken recharge is, and everyone and their horse spits out defence buffs above about level 40.

Waaaaaay back when it was an optional pick of a power pool and not an inherent, possibly even pre-CoV's release, someone asked me - rather dismissively - why my kinetics defender didn't take Stamina as I was the only person on the team without it. Kinetics defenders have a "refill my endurance bar" button. I might have a look at /psi. This thread actually encouraged me to wheel out my dark/dark tanker again and I'm enjoying sitting him in a pile of shaking enemies too terrified to attack.

I've got a dark/dark tanker and a dark/dark corruptor and... yep! The tanker particularly is a lot of fun, although sadly he got shelved as he had Corona as part of his name and... you know. One day he will return. I think what I really want is a peacebringer with a full melee attack chain.

I just tried this: I don't think the prestige flight powers boost Fly, although you can run them simultaneously. I actually like them both. Arcane Ward can reliably save an ally and keep a squishy alive. If you've got a blaster on your team who plays by bouncing along the ceiling and out of range of AoE heals, it's a good enough Hail Mary to keep them going a little longer. It's also good for tanks that haven't hit the "functionally invincible" stage yet. Enflame I generally just leave running on a tank for as long as I have the endurance to do so. Enflame is never amazing, but the damage keeps ticking away regardless. It also has a niche use as a control power - slap it on an a boss when you're overwhelmed and often they'll just start running, giving you time to deal with minions and lieutenants.

Added a few bits on today and did a little editing.

: O I just tried this - the boost is massive. Nice find!

I checked... and it seems someone else grabbed it after I freed it up. Also released: Red Radiance King Quantum Sparklighter

No, this is the correct decision. Even the most repellent criminal scum deserve better than fire or ice swords. Mine... I will almost always go out of my way to put Recall Friend (or whatever it is now) into my builds. I just like it. It's nice. Helps lowbies get around. Sustain is overrated, anyway.

I have Dark Watchman that I either released today or will do tomorrow. Can't remember if I actually did it. Any good?

As soon as I hit 50 on Union, I rolled a Peacebringer (blaster mode, tanker mode and blapper mode - what's not to love?). My main on Everlasting has been a Fortunado (controller meets blapper but with defences that would make a brute nod in approval)... and I can't quite find anything that even roughly compares. In WoW I was a Druid and a Shaman. Hybrid is just what I like playing. Jack of all trades, master of turning into a space lobster. You know, normal things. Sentinels are, to an extent, safety blasters and I respect people who play them but they're not for me. I've looked at Warshade and SoAs and they're too similar to familiar territory. Maybe a blapper who flirts heavilly with power pools? My experiments with blasters has been a bit of a non-starter as my DP/devices blaster seemed to spend more time twirling round than doing anything useful. I've had good luck with defenders (storm/water is really fun) and corruptors (dark/dark is quietly amazing). Controllers can be fun but their Inherent needs a serious look at (or at least Fear needs to trigger Containment crits). Dominators? A procced out corruptor with lots of pool powers? A scrapper with 99 of each purchasable prestige power called The Influencer? What can people recommend? Help a hybrid out?

I will say that Mind soloes incredibly well. It plays like a blast set, but also controls. Mind also bypasses ranged defence, which is situationally useful but it's there. Telekinesis is a gimmick power, but other than that they're all solid. What I would like is if Containment procced on Fear, though.

I don't think they're complicated at all, really - it's just a stance swap with some sexy visuals. Personally, I don't think the psi hole is that bad... it's easy to end up with zero challenge if you don't have some weakness. I'd like it if toggles carried over between forms. Considering how IO sets throw balance out of the window with defence basically on tap, I honestly don't think it's as much as an issue on HC as it was on live. They also all have a mezz shield - dwarf form. There is a slotting problem as Nova form shares a lot of identical powers with human form, meaning slotting both is hard work. I'd really like it if there were shared slots somehow. Maybe picking a form could lock you into a certain "path" like with VEATs, so a human could have human skills but a Nova could have shared skills? I don't know how that would work from a programming perspective. I really do think they lose their sparkle at top level as they were, early on, about the only true ranged hybrid archetypes. Now, blasters can rock up with defence that would have made an pre-IO tanker impressed and they lost a lot of what made them unique, aside from the shapeshifting. Give Nova a damage review (instead of a base damage increase, maybe a proc based on number of allies?) and let toggles carry over perhaps. It's worth noting, though, that Kheldians scale extremely well in Flashback missions and I'm fairly certain that between about levels 20 and 30 they're statistically better than a few Tankers. Sentinels are arguably very similar to Kheldians and suffer the same problems - their niche is easy crowded out by IO bonuses. They're peacebringers without the screen-obliterating effects. They're fun to play, though. Eesh. I am a Fortunado main and I'd say the high END cost is the price you pay for being awesome. I think Night Widow needs a bit of a look at because at the moment it's a crap stalker who gets the epic power pools a bit early, while Fortunatas are a controller, a scrapper and a blaster all in one. I don't really know about crabs, but I think they occupy their niches a bit better. Bane spider is probably a better sentinel than sentinels, but that's not saying much. Narrowing it down a bit (a lot), I'd really like to see a bit more balance between scrappers and stalkers. The Live stalker revamp and the HC tanker revamp were really good examples of how it can be done well. Blasters need a bit of a look at - glass cannon DPS should be the highest DPS, not vaguely somewhere in the middle with a "high risk, middling reward" playstyle. I'd love it if the old style Defiance (more powerful as you lose health) and new Defiance (damage boosts from attacks) were combined. Vigilance, the Defender inherent is... just not wonderful. It allows them to solo better, yeah, but beyond that it's just a bit lacklustre. Maybe a stacking Power Boost effect or something? It's just quite underwhelming, especially when compared to the Corrupter version which is a reliable DPS increase. The controller and controller ones are solid and the dominator one is a playstyle in and of itself... the VEAT one is basically a footnote. Masterminds... I honestly can't remember if they have one.

They vary massively depending on your primary. I like the support specs just because of how much they differ. Time is a bona fide tank. Rad could take down the entire universe solo, provided it had long enough. Kinetics is terrible solo but can turn a mediocre team into an unstoppable force as long as they stay in melee. Force Field is fire-and-forget with a lot of soft control. Sonic is similar, but plays differently enough. Storm is like a blaster if all of your attacks were AoE. Poison can solo anything it can spit on as long as it does it fast. There's just so much variety. Also, the Inherent means you're actually fairly decent solo.

I play around with power pools quite a lot, but the core of it is the same. Currently enjoying the Presence pool, but not really, really sold on losing the convenience of Teleport Target. For me, it was taking down bosses. Minions got splatted. Lieutenants were present but irrelevant as AoEs took them out eventually. I'm much more build for AoE chaos than single targets, particularly when on a timer.

Kind of you to say. It's so weird that this silly build thread I posted ages ago about builds because I just like writing guides has so much attention. I'm still more or less using the same build (though I play around a lot) because it's really solid. I long for the day when VEATs get weapon customisation (I want energy weapon glow hands instead of knuckle duster claws), but that will never happen. I'll also shout out @tidge is giving excellent Fortunata advice. We often take different approaches to the same goal and I've learnt from them. I did actually try out the trapdoor test recently. Super safe, but the DPS was a bit middling and it took a while and the idea of running it five times to take an average didn't interest me. If you build it strongly for damage, you would do better (the snipe attacks from the PPPs etc), but my builds are more generalist.

Honestly? I like it. It's a bit underpowered, but it does its job. With the Contagious Confusion proc (which, admittedly, it interacts with poorly), it does its job better. It would really benefit from the pulses synching up better with procs, but hey ho. It's a gimmicky power but it's one of the more unique ones and I think that has a lot of value. Yeah. I'm quite surprised it didn't get the same AoE treatment in the recent patch. I think this is a "great solo, great levelling, niche in endgame" power. I do think endgame suffers a bit from everyone being basically invincible, but it's a superhero game and superheroes do be like that sometimes.

Yep! I've even had other people say "Don't worry, he is a tank" in my defence. Debuffs grab aggro at a high rate, so as long as someone doesn't hit a taunt and short-circuit the aggro control defenders can tank really well. I think people forget that defenders and controllers were the pre-CoV champions of doing something really stupid, but doing it well. Rad, poison and time can all hold aggro excellently. But, back to the point at hand: dwarf form makes a solid tank and when you get the L38 resistance buffs, you can grab aggro, drop into nova and blow everything up, drop into human and blow everything up again, then hop back into dwarf to keep the taunt-wheel turning.

More or less. I can tank quite capably on a defender and a widow, though. Honestly, holding aggro is not nearly as hard as you might think.

According to City of Data, all Dwarf attacks actually have a taunt built in. I didn't know! Either way, it's not hard to hold aggro at all, they're very sturdy, everyone and their cow provides defence buffs and soft control from the knockdown is useful.

Not really, no - flight is baked into nova form. There is a "fly down" key that you can bind - I want to say its default is X or C. Mash that when you start drifting?

I made an attempt at "only the good ones" here: I admit I haven't meaningfully updated it in a bit, though. My "Unusual mission format" path would probably go Atlas > Hollows (starts crap, gets better) > Kings Row > Faultline (it's just good) > Steel (Laura Lockheart) > the Wards > Whatever > Dark Astoria.

Longbow's illegal occupation of Mercy Island is making it harder and harder to deal with the Snake problem, it's true. Consider writing a strongly worded letter to Ms Liberty to stop interfering in the affairs of a sovereign nation and allow the Rogue Isles authorities to divert more funds into dealing with them. Longbow are a drain on all our resources.

Reads from card. "Reports of tourists being eaten are gross exaggerations. Some of you may remember the unfortuna - " Rereads comment. "Forget what you have just heard. Yes, we are proud to celebrate diversity in the Rogue Isles. All are welcome, be they conventional human, silocone-based, undead, mutated or interdimensional. Or robots. We like robots. And spider women. Robots, spider women, the undead... "