For the MSR fiends: The requested Risa Beedm EA build

[roribeedm]

So people have asked how I setup Risa to be able to swing an MSR from wipes to a stable bowl. I don't really think the build is that much of a stretch for most people to come up with, but it might, in part, be due to some of the things that I do with the character and some slightly abnormal slotting choices.

The typical Electric Affinity things are to be expected of course: 
1) Faraday cage up at all times
2) Spam the chains
3) Keep your Static count as high as possible (hitting 19 or 20 shouldn't be an issue at all)

 

What might not be common is what I set for the auto-fire. You might think Rejuvenating Circuit would be best, for the consistent healing, but I've actually found that Insulating Circuit has a much larger impact in the bowl. The goal is to get those grey absorb bars as thick as possible on everyone in the bowl.

I also target another Defender while in the bowl. This might seem counter-intuitive due to Amp Up not getting to use it's knock up and end drain on enemies, but there is a reason for this. Amp Up gives a bonus to recharge, allowing a defender to spam their heals quicker, and a boost to secondary effects from powers to boost their heals and defense buffs. This gives a decent boost to league survivability, on top of whatever impact Risa herself has.

The defender factor should never be ignored. I will always bring the Defender EA version of Risa when I need to bring someone into a collapsing or even slightly unstable bowl. For people who know the numbers this is fairly obvious. For those who don't know, Defenders get the highest stats for each EA power. More healing, more absorb, more +res, more +end and +rech than controller, corrupter, or masterminds will get with the same slotting. That isn't to say the other ATs aren't good at EA, but in an emergency situation bringing in an EA Defender will simply have the largest impact.

 

One last thing that has an impact that some people might write off as unnecessary: +5 everything you possibly can in the build. Convert those vMerits to Reward Merits and grab those Enhancement Boosters. It takes around 400 of them, but that extra boost is well worth it. It's a noticeable change going from just slotted 50s to all +5s on this build.

Now...what do I take?

 

Well let's start with the obvious: Electric Affinity Primary. This is your bread and butter and should be 90% of what your powers in the bowl. You won't be attacking once there, so focus on this set and get them as soon as they are available. The only power to skip in EA is Galvanic Sentinel. You NEVER want to burn your stacks of Static, so Galvanic Sentinel shouldn't even be an option for you with this build. Shock is picked up to get a +7.5% recharge boost, but is rarely used even while attacking pylons.

Your secondary doesn't really matter too much. I took Electric Blast, but anything will work. The trick here is to take between 4-6 attack powers. I did pickup Voltaic Sentinel to be able to pop something every once in a while to put out some damage in the bowl, but this really isn't the key to the build. Have enough attacks to have a decent cycle while dealing with pylons, and that is enough.

For the pools, two of these can be adjusted for flavor and preferred style, but three are essential: Leadership, Speed, and Power Mastery.

Leadership  is obvious. Defense boost, Damage boost, and To Hit boost for everyone? Yes please. These are among the few buffs EA is missing, and boom. Covered now. The only thing missing at this point that I would like to work in somehow is a recovery boost, but that isn't really possible at the moment unfortunately.

Speed? Hasten. That is all that needs to be said. The faster you spam your powers, the better you can keep everyone else up. Once you get your incarnates, you should be able to keep Hasten up at all times with a comfortable amount of time to hit it again before it runs out.

Power Mastery is another big boost to your effectiveness. While end conservation isn't usually an issue in the bowl, every now and then the 50+s who brought Ageless go down and all of a sudden the blue bars start dropping. Conserve power will help keep you in the fight longer. Power Build Up on the other hand is basically Amp Up for yourself. Hit that sucker every time it comes up. 

 

Now for the other 2 power pools, I have my preferred options, and some tweaks I might make if I ever decide to respec Risa.

Fly is my goto travel power. If you can hover above the crowd you can easily center your Faraday Cage on the murderball. Just make sure you are low enough to cover a decent area on the ground. Hover is taken to give you a much needed defense boost. For you are Defender, you are squishy and taste good with ketchup.

 

The last power pool I take is Teleport. I currently only have Teleport Target on Risa so I can drag corpses back to the bowl if no one else brought teleport or to drag people off the ramps if necessary. This is the one area that I might tweak in a respec. If I were to tweak it, I would most likely drop vengeance and Voltaic Sentinel to get up to Fold Space, but this is a choice I leave to everyone else. Since this version of Risa was made before the travel power changes, she wasn't built with Fold Space in mind.

For slotting....Risa is a bit unorthodox, and I will just leave the Mids to explain how most of it is done. The important parts though: 6 slot all your chains. Preventive Medicine in Rejuvenating Circuit for its Recharge Time Reduction and Endurance Discount, Panacea in Insulating Circuit for its 6% healing boost and extra Recharge reduction, Faraday Cage gets the two procs from Steadfast Protection and Gladiators armor as well as the Psionic Resistance and 3 others from Impervium Armor for a slight boost to max end, and the biggest "odd" choice is Ball Lightning or any attack you can fit it in: 3 Vigilant Assault and 3 Superior Vigilant Assault. This is to double up on the 10% Recharge enhancement you get there.

Last thing I will touch on is the Incarnates. Lore, Interface, and Judgement are all personal choice for the most part. There are the obvious no goes for MSRs in the Lore list (Storm elementals with repel or Rikti pets) but other than that pick your flavor. For the important Incarnates...well lets get the obvious one out of the way first.

 

Destiny: There is only one choice if you want to swing the bowl in your favor, Clarion Core Epiphany. Yes you have your Faraday Cage, but when there are 20 magus rushing the bowl you NEED Clarion on top of it. Never count on someone else to have it. Stack your buffs yourself and if someone else has it to help even better. This should be your first priority when you hit 50. Save your threads, save your Empyrean Merits, get Clarion as soon as your Destiny unlocks.

Alpha: Spiritual Core Paragon. Simple choice really. 45% recharge rate? 33% healing boost? Gimme Gimme. Vigor would be a close second, it gives you more healing per cast, but Accuracy isn't necessary for you and hopefully you won't need the endurance reduction too much in the bowl with all the stacking end management options from the rest of the league.

Hybrid: This is where you get some endurance discount, but that's not the important part. Support Core Embodiment is another source of Secondary Effect boosting. Heals and Defense increase for the win. It also has the added benefit of boosting your trollers and doms so they can lockdown more targets in the bowl, and boosting the accuracy of your DPSers. Make a macro to toggle this on and hit it as often as it comes up (powexectoggle_on Support Core Embodiment)

 

That covers everything important for the build. I will add the Mids and you will see what I mean by some abnormal slotting choices, but this is what Risa is currently and I think everyone who has seen her flip a bowl will agree...it works. It probably shouldn't, but somehow it does.

Defender - zn_Electrical Affinity - Electrical Blast.mxd

[Grey-Ghost]

Thanks Risa, I know this will help out a lot of people who want to help with this be much more effective.

[Crystal Dragon]

I'll see if I can sort out Mayday's setup. You got some solid advice here for EA defenders and I can see the EA abilities topping well with MM's too. Is there a variation with MM robotics that you might recommend?

[roribeedm]

For the most part, MMs can take the same EA powers, and the slotting is mostly the same. You lose out on Vigilant Assault, but you can substitute the MM ATOs in there. You may need to drop Teleport target and/or vengeance to get more MM powers. In that case I would try to fit in group fly and maybe forgo attack powers all together.

[Crystal Dragon]

That's the build I went with for Mayday, all buffs, anti-mezz, heals with robots going nuts.

[Bearserker]

This is brilliant, Risa, thanks!

[roribeedm]

Thanks Bear. Glad you like it.