Mez protection options

[Ankylosaur]

Played a warshade on live but back before IOs and new power pools... Thinking of focusing on a triform or maybe human only and wondering why no one seems to ever include the mez protectors in the builds I can find.

 

1. Does anyone successfully
   1. run a Warshade with Acrobatics?
   2. Or maybe you've managed to make Rune of protection (or whatever the sorcery power is called) permanent? 

 

 

[Doomrider]

A few reasons:

1) Mez protection isn't really inherent to the class. Dwarf form can give you away to escape mez, but it won't reduce the duration of the mez just make you immune while in Dwarf. Using Dwarf form as mez protection can be a bit of a trap IMO. Dark Sustenance can't really be relied on as mag 1 mez protection granted per control AT in your team is still not enough to rely on and certainly doesn't help you solo.

2) Break Frees exist but aren't inherently part of a build so they wouldn't show up on a mids export.

3) Clarion is an option, but will only benefit you in the post 50 range and exemping down to 45. Even clarion is not perfect though, you can still be mezzed when the power is close to expiring and/or 
before you have a chance to reapply. That being said, incarnates are a bit of personal choice and opinions vary. Not everyone chooses to include specific incarnate picks as staples of a build export but some do.

4) As for Rune of Protection, well... there are probably more cons to using it on a Warshade then there are pros. It's going to give you mez protection with roughly 50% uptime +-. It is not possible
to make permanent. The problem with taking it however, is the additional damage resistances it provides you will be overkill in circumstances where Eclipse alone is already capping your damage resistance to all types. You could make an arguement in favor of RoP in instances where you don't have multiple enemy targets present in which to maximize Eclipse. 
That being said RoP still requires you to take 2 pre-requisite powers that you're unlikely to use, on a class that is already slot starved, and has an abundance of more ideal power choices as well as optional powers to choose from, nevermind power pool picks.

As for your question about acrobatics, well mag 2 hold protection won't stop you from being held on it's own. Is a toggle so it won't play well with Tri-form buiilds.
Human form builds already run multiple toggles and have no inherent +recovery powers. Running too many toggles can often run you out of steam if there are no bodies around to Stygian Circle off of.
That and the mez protection granted can easily be slotted into the build through ios. Shadow Step and Shadow recall, both inherent powers can take Blessing of the Zephyr KB protection giving you mag 8 protection at the cost of 0 additional slots.

I know mez is a big sticking point for a lot of people trying Warshades out. Especially if they come from playing any of the melee AT's. It's something you get use to countering through other means (usually break free macros at least in my experience) the more you play. It's unfortunate that not having easy access to mez is sometimes enough for people to shelve the AT entirely soon after trying it.

[SableShrike]

@Veelectric Boogaloo mentioned this recently, but the Defensive Amplifier is Mag4 protection against everything for 1 hour of game-time.

 

It’s available to everyone at the P2W provided you have the influence (which isn’t too hard to scrounge up).  Influence cost scales with your level, so this can be an amazing tool to getting mez protection in Human or Nova.

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 10/10/2020 at 5:48 AM, SableShrike said:

@Veelectric Boogaloo mentioned this recently, but the Defensive Amplifier is Mag4 protection against everything for 1 hour of game-time.

 

It’s available to everyone at the P2W provided you have the influence (which isn’t too hard to scrounge up).  Influence cost scales with your level, so this can be an amazing tool to getting mez protection in Human or Nova.

This is, sadly, the way to go. I've been abusing it on all my squishies. (Where squishy = character without built in mez protection.)

[archgemini24]

On 10/10/2020 at 6:48 AM, SableShrike said:

@Veelectric Boogaloo mentioned this recently, but the Defensive Amplifier is Mag4 protection against everything for 1 hour of game-time.

 

It’s available to everyone at the P2W provided you have the influence (which isn’t too hard to scrounge up).  Influence cost scales with your level, so this can be an amazing tool to getting mez protection in Human or Nova.

And it is even more important for Human-only builds, which will likely also be trying to leverage Toggles. Building up for a bunch of Defense sucks when it gets suppressed on Mez, but to add insult to injury Mez also flat-out drops Orbiting Death and Inky Aspect, which get used to stem the flow of incoming attacks (which also come with more Mezzes. Yay!).

[Timeshadow]

On 9/25/2020 at 1:28 PM, Ankylosaur said:

Played a warshade on live but back before IOs and new power pools... Thinking of focusing on a triform or maybe human only and wondering why no one seems to ever include the mez protectors in the builds I can find. 

 

Never felt any need for them, TBH.  Once you've got access to Dwarf, mezz is pretty trivial unless you're slow to recognize it's on you and don't shift in time.  Black Dwarf in particular can be a solid offensive tool when slotted properly.  

 

That being said, Warshades have to shift a lot more frequently than PBs so I can see why you'd want it.  As others have said, the P2W temp power is probably your best bet if you're going TriForm.  You won't be able to keep Acrobatics toggled on for long before you need to shift forms again.  Human-only is a different story, of course. 

[Carnifax]

On 11/21/2020 at 3:53 AM, Timeshadow said:

That being said, Warshades have to shift a lot more frequently than PBs so I can see why you'd want it.  As others have said, the P2W temp power is probably your best bet if you're going TriForm.  You won't be able to keep Acrobatics toggled on for long before you need to shift forms again.  Human-only is a different story, of course. 

The biggest problem is that if you're in Dwarf mode you've pretty much 0 idea if you are mezzed til you pop out of it and start twitching in place. Very annoying. 

 

Personally I'd give Dwarf mez protection a bit of linger-time (6-10 seconds) so at least you can do something (other than pop straight back into Dwarf like a snail retreating back into its shell).

[Luigrein]

You technically can tell if you will be mezzed by looking at the icons on your (de)buff bar.* That said, I still agree with the sentiment. I do check my buff bar periodically but I'm not sure I could ingrain "check buff bar before form shifting" into my habits if frequently shifting was common practice.

 

*Reading the buff bar for this does require some game knowledge of what the icons mean and what powersets have CC riders that may not be indicated on the icon. If you have any color blindness issues that second part may be trickier, although you can generally figure it out by watching your enemies.

[PluckySidekick]

On 11/24/2020 at 3:54 AM, Carnifax said:

The biggest problem is that if you're in Dwarf mode you've pretty much 0 idea if you are mezzed til you pop out of it and start twitching in place. Very annoying. 

 

Personally I'd give Dwarf mez protection a bit of linger-time (6-10 seconds) so at least you can do something (other than pop straight back into Dwarf like a snail retreating back into its shell).

 

I keep my Hold Protection up in my Combat Attributes window. If it drops below a certain point (~14 at 50), I'm held outside of Dwarf Form. It seemed better to me than trying to interpret which powers are currently affecting me at any given time.

 

Then again, if Ghost Widow is around, it doesn't really matter.

[Wavicle]

Play a PB if you want mez protection across the forms.

Play a WS for the pets.