Deacon_NA

Agreed, looks solid.

I know this is just SOs, but if you get a chance, try to get your hands on a -kb io, it's a difference maker. The Karma -kb can be had for a song, looking at the market now in the last 5 bids I see a sale for 55,000. One of those can go in either Hover or Maneuvers. Steadfast Protection can go in either of your shields.

Dr. Manhattan

Thanos - even without extra empowerment he seems to be on a power level comparable to the Silver Surfer and Adam Warlock.

I just made one of these a couple of weeks ago. I'm very impressed so far, even at "the dark age" for a MM, lvl 24 now.

I'd say you're lacking end reduction. A MM pays for his/her/its awesomeness via high endurance costs, so in the 2 heals, I'd use 2 end reductions, 1 in place of a heal, one in place of a recharge.

The 2 upgrade powers should use end reduction, not recharge. Someone may debate my point above, this one can't be debated.

Likewise for your attacks, not enough end reduction. Personally I view the attacks as more of a -res debuff than a high damage attack. So I'd take at least 1 of the damage enhancers and substitute in an endurance reduction for any of the personal attacks.

Power of the Phoenix has an exhorbitant endurance cost (61 end!) and I'd use an end reduction instead of recharge (notice a trend?).

Well it shouldn't be over simplified.

Personally I've never bothered to do a dps calc, but it would need to account for certain probabilities, such as to-hit (which should hopefully be .95), criticals, how often Build-Up (or other +Dmg buff) is up. Then it gets tricky accounting for AAO or Soul Drain, which have variable buffs based on mob size. Then for advanced DPS calcs there's Kinetic Melee...

The -Dmg for Infrigidate is for Fire damage only, it does not affect other damage types.

Honestly I say flip a coin and go with it. You wanted pros/cons here a quickie list:

Cold/Sonic
Pros:
-Res machine, especially with HL.
Def buff (at least the shields) work on teammates regardless of your location
Benumb is a rare power that does much to minimize the danger of an AV
Artic Fog provides resists to slow and -rch for teammates within range, very nice.

Cons
Needs a high recharge build to make Benumb perma, or even close to perma
Benumb just might miss
Sonic's only practical aoe is a cone. Not really a terrible con, but it has to be considered.

Traps/Dark
Pros
With FFG + Maneuvers + 2 Dark aoes you are effectively soft-capping the team against even cons. The -tohit from Dark, of course, will decrease against higher cons and ranks.
You get a heal from /Dark, which can come in handy since Traps doesn't have one.
Partial mez protection from FFG
Tenebrous Tentacles works well with Traps since it keeps foes within the debuffs and Caltrops (reduces scatter)
Dark Pit + Seekers can stack stuns. I'd consider it a bonus when it happens rather than depending on Seeker's chance to stun.
Easy to soft-cap with FFG

Cons
/Dark won't be as effective as /Sonic against the AVs and GM you (OP) are hoping to hunt
FFG will trail behind you and can act wonky in caves. This means you can be more suscepible to mezzes than you may expect.
Teammates will not get your buffs if they are out of range or out of LOS.
Since I called Howl a "con" for being a cone I should do the same for Dark's aoes, since they're cones too.

So, if the objective truly is big-game hunting, I'd flip a coin for the primary and choose /sonic for blast set. As for general pve teaming, whatevah.

What the heck, I'll take a shot:

1 MM
2 Crab
3 Corr
3 Def
5 Controller
6 Dom
7 NW/Fort
8 Scrapper
9 Brute
10 Warshade
11 Blaster
12 Tank
13 Stalker
14 PB

I would put Stalkers around 7 or 8 except for the team utility thing. I do think they're more "fun" than Scraps, in general. I wimped out and tied Corrs and Defs.

For me, the gap occurs between 7 and 8, where the "support" classes end and the "damage" classes begin.

Just for bona fides - I've played (not PLd) all of the above ATs to 50, with only the 2 Khelds having just one 50 each, the rest have multiple 50s.

I thought the question was going to be "who would win?" I was going to bet on the inanimate object.

There are a few notions mentioned for why not to run 2 Traps that I think need addressing

1) Easy to soft-cap 1. Sure, once you hit 50 and buy your build. Or, you can soft-cap at level 22 with 2 Trappers once they have SOs. I don't think the OP is looking to PL to 50. With a Sonic, until you starting building out IOs you'll have a max of 30% def (20% FFG + 2* Maneuvers), let's say 33 to include something like CJ.

2) Traps is active. This one is quite perplexing. I periodically use a Trap for a following toon. Here's the activity for a 2nd box trapper with a main box trapper - spawn FFG, move main toon to where you want traps to drop (this is after seekers from main toon), hit the 2 keys that will drop PGT and AM, switch context, hit the 2 buttons for PGT and AM. Done. In the time it takes you animate Trip Mine you can keep switching context between the 2 instances. I really, really don't get how Traps is "too active" to be a 2nd box. This in contrast to Sonic which will have to use a targeting reticle to drop its big debuff power, which "fortunately" is on such a long timer you won't have to worry about this too much.

One specific quote: "Two traps is kinda pointless IMO" really inspires lolz. I've done 2 traps super teams and they were as powerful as any other ST I've been on (including Frads, VEATs, etc etc). That means 8 trappers and it was hardly pointless.

Anyway, the Sonic will be fine and you'll be able to do regular content, no problem. The OP mentioned "tougher content" which is why I still think 2 Trappers would be better.

This is one of the easiest questions of this type I can remember. It's 2 Traps/Sonics and I'd love to hear what someone would counter with as an argument for 2 Sonic/Sonics.

Really the only "skip this" power from Traps is Time Bomb. Everything else ranges from "has nice utility" (like web nade) to "OMG AWESOMESAUCE!" like Poison Trap or FFG.

For BSG haters that stopped after the pilot, I offer my own testimonial...

I too hated the pilot, it evoked the movie "Wing Commander" to me. I'm not sure why now, but at the time, it did.

Starting with "33" though, I got hooked.

Also, for Babylon 5, that's another one that's not a good candidate to cherry-pick episodes. It has an overarching plot that demands the viewer watch the episodes in succession. I think it's a very rewarding series to start at ep 1. Feel free to stop though, when the Shadow War ends, I don't think you'll be missing much after that.

The biggest void I feel is for not having seen any of the old school (pre-Eccleston) Dr. Who episodes. One of these days I'll track them down...

Pardon my being dense, but I actually don't get the point of the thread. Is it that "Stalkers rool", maybe "Defebcers r teh suxxor"?

Last night I joined my first TT ever (on Infinity) and had a blast! I was on the STF team and we "got 'er dun". I actually learned something about my tank and where he ranks on an AV's threat list (not as high as I would like, I tended to lose aggro even if I was the first to jump in and smack the AV).

I don't have a lot of tanks across the servers but I'll definitely keep an eye out for when I can join up for a future TT.

Though I could not be more bored with the Defender vs Corruptor debate, one item did catch my attention above - the Trip Mine #s. So I did a little digging and it looks like MM, Corr and Blaster Trip Mine all does the same damage, but Defender does 65% of the damage those do. Where the heck did that modifier come from? So... MM Trip Mine can = Blaster Trip Mine, but Def must be nerfed to heck? I don't get it, I'm sure it's an issue raised before that I didn't pay attention to. Now I'm paying attention. Anyway, I'll shush, out of fear any actual response would include a nerfing to MM Trip Mine, and I'd rather my Defs be unduly low than see my MM nerfed.

Still, I have to ask, has anyone seen an explanation from the development team on this discrepancy? It just can't be right.

I always like to see someone take "The Road Less Traveled" and Ill/Sonic certainly qualifies, I don't think I've ever seen one.

Without an IO build that is endurance friendly, you probably need your epic to have an endurance management tool, leaving Fire (Consume), Ice (Hibernate), Primal (Conserve Power), Soul (Dark Consumption), Leviathan (Hibernate again), and Mu (Power Sink). I like Hibernate because it's not just for endurance but it's a great "you don't win" (as opposed to an "I win") power.

I can certainly relate to how foreboding it can feel to go from SO build to finalized live IO set build. I've got many waiting on the build assembly line just waiting for me to "get around to it". Still, if this is the character you spend the most time playing, it's a worthy endeavor. It really shouldn't take "hours upon hours", at least if you only count in-game time. It may well take many hours for bids to fill while you're offline, at least you should hope so, meaning you're not using the "buy it nao" method. These steps will get your build:

1) Create it in Mids
2) (optional) Post it back here for review
3) Place bids on your recipes, grouping as much as possible (ie, if you're using 3 sets of Decimations, buy your 3 Deci Acc/Dmg in one bid)
4) Place bids on salvage you don't own for those recipes
5) Create and store these enhancements, preferably in an SG base you either own or completely trust the other members who have rights to storage bins.
6) Repeat 1-5 until all enhancements are built
7) Respec

You're done! I realize the above outline may seem pedantic, but it's just to show that any daunting task can be broken down into less daunting sub tasks, which makes it easier to do.

Is the priority to build a Kinetics user? I ask because I personally regard Kin as not a great choice for a second box. It's a busy set that requires a lot of attention of the player. There do exist people with the skills and/or 2-boxing tools to actively play 2 characters effectively. I am not one of them, so a 2nd box has to be pretty "fire and forget" for me.

Empathy, on the other hand, may well be "the best" 2nd box support set. It doesn't depend on enemy targets and won't draw aggro as a kin would and its buffs have a decent duration. Fortitude + Leadership (Defender values) would give Def to all of ~28%, a +dmg buff of 50%, ~30% to-hit. Then the staggering of AB with the 2 RAs would create an unkillable engine of destruction. Obviously anything would team well with this, but I'd go for a Fire/SD scrap.

For the record, I'm endorsing Empathy over Kin for this despite a strong preference for Kinetics, both for what I'd prefer to see on a team and what I prefer to play.

Edit to answer the travel question: I would want the threat level of the 2nd box to be as minimal as possible, so I'd go for super speed (and a stealth io). This toon should also take recall ally from the teleport pool so 1) you only need to have one character travel to a mission door 2) stealth to mission objectives if you so choose

I just made one this weekend, as a matter of fact. At the casual rate I level my soloing characters, I'll certainly be a lower level than the altered powers by the time i21 comes out (15 now).

This is my first /EA so I can't actually answer "is it lame" but on paper, the build I made looks sweet, capping s/l/e in the early-mid 30s (whenever I actually slot Kin Combats) and eventually caps all but psi. So, soft-capped def, a quick recharging heal, an endurance tool and as a bonus, a t9 that's actually regarded as helpful, with its +HP. So it doesn't sound lame to me.

Basically (and simplistically) representing final damage you've got

Base * Min( AT Cap, (1 + Σ (Damage Enhancements subject to ED) + Σ Damage Buffs)) * (1 + min( -3, Σ Resist Debuffs))

A majority of ATs have a damage cap of 400%, so let's look at that.

Assume damage is slotted to ed cap, giving us (1 + .95 + .2 * KinSiphons), I won't get into the 2 types of kin buffs and just leave it at this player is damage capped (especially considering other +dmg buffs, ie Assault or AM). So that's 400% damage. This may not be true for ATs with higher caps.

Let's look at 2 scenarios for Cold : 1) a worst case of one Sleet debuff 2) a best case of two Sleet debuffs + Heat Loss

1) (1 + .95) * (1 + .3) = 2.535
2) (1 + .95) * (1 + .9) = 3.7

So, Kin definitely provides more damage and that's no surprise, even for the best case for Cold.

I would like to submit two more scenarios: 1) A Kin is already on the team 2) A Cold is already on the team.

I'm only going to account for 1 Sleet here. If you bring a Kin to a team with a Kin, I'm not even going to go through the motions of showing there is no incremental damage buff gain. Capped is capped. When you bring a Cold to a team with a Kin, then magic happens... 4 * (1 + .3) = 5.2

If you bring a Cold to a team with a Cold, then you get (1 + .95) * (1 + 2 * .3) = 3.12

Moral of the story... a Kin is, as expected, the undisputed king of damage buffing. A second kin.... not so much. Please note I'm not saying 2 kins invalidate each other, just that the incremental gain of a 2nd kin isn't that great. There's always room for another Cold though. And another, and another and another...

Let me acknowledge I did not account for purple patch or enemy resistances which would be favorable to Kinetics.

For the record, 2 of my 10 favorite characters are a fire/kin corr and a fire/cold corr. I have no bias of one over the other, I rate them both as 10 stars out of 10 for fun and team utility. I solo better on the /Cold, but I rarely solo either. They're on different servers so I don't have to choose between them, but if I did I'd probably start off with the fire/kin and if another kin joined the team, i'd switch to the Cold.