Doctor_Kumquat

Shard is hero-only content, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen - they'd just need to pair it with a Villain only SF, like Ice Mistral or something. I dunno, I'd like to see more attention drawn to the Shard sometime soon, though I can understand why it'd be more challenging to coordinate fairly.

Low 30s would work very well; it'll cut down on about 60% of the incoming attacks normally, and a single (small) luck will be enough to temporarily softcap against really nasty crowds.

Not to derail the thread, but does anyone know for certain whether Bayonet can crit from hide or not, assuming your Huntsman dipped into the Bane secondary for Cloaking Device (and related goodies)?

As to your most recent build, Alexandras... the bulk of it looks alright, but there are certain strange slot choices. You've got a generic endurance slot in your +def toggles, in addition to three LotGs. If you swapped to a fourth LotG (def/end/rech, which is missing) you could grab huge chunks of extra +acc and a bit more defense for only ~.02 higher EPS per toggle (~.03 EPS for Weave). Similarly, you have two end redux in Assault, when the second one just gives .06 EPS. Remember, end redux becomes exponentially less impressive the more you have of it, and if you DO plan on taking Cardiac, these slots will be even less important. You could slide some slots around to add to Call Reinforcements (more dam/rech would be nice), or add some to Tough (if you plan on using it as more than a -KB mule and stepping stone to Weave). You could also add a Performance Shifter proc to Stamina, if you're worried about endurance usage; swapping from 3 generics to 1 generic, along with Perf. Shifter +end, +end/*, and the proc can add an effective +.11 EPS, along with slightly faster movespeed and 20 max hp. Oh, and if you're not too attached to the heal proc, you can sub out the Entropic Chaos set in Single Shot for Devastation like you have in Burst - you'll get way more accuracy, and trade out the redundant +10% regen for more max hp. Alternatively, you could shake it up and add in some procs - Achilles Heel, Lady Grey, Shield Breaker, Devastation, and Apocalypse are all possibilities.

Btw, I really like your creative slotting in Heavy Burst. I may just need to borrow that for some of my cones.

You rightly read that adding some ranged defense to a blaster can make an impressive difference; if you can even scramble together around 25% defense from sets and pool powers, that'll cut most incoming damage, debuffs, and mezzes in half. If you get it to the low 30s, you can effectively cap your ranged defense with a single purple insp (which is phenomenal).

That said, there are plenty of other useful things to build for; with an AoE deathmachine like an AR/Fire blaster, more acc/dam/rech/recovery can only help, and pretty much any squishy wants some KB protection. Your core powers don't have a huge variety of sets to use, but depending on your pool choices, you have some flexibility. AR/Fire doesn't offer many places for sets with ranged defense, but you can make do.

Ranged AoE attacks really only have one worthwhile set (Positron's Blast) as far as bonuses go, aside from the prohibitively expensive Purple/PvP sets. As such, you can get a lot of accuracy, recovery, and recharge just from throwing 5 Posi's in your AoEs, with a 6th filler slot to beef up whatever slotting seems lacking (acc/end/rech/range/whatever). Your ST ranged attacks (including Ring of Fire) can use Thunderstrikes for ranged defense, accuracy, and recovery, or Decimations for recharge (though Thunderstrikes tend to be far cheaper). Devastation sets can give +HP, +Regen, and +Damage, with an interesting hold proc, although damage boosts from sets tend to be less effective than increasing DPS through more recharge, or increasing survivability (usually through +defense).

If you take Beanbag, Fire Sword, Sniper Rifle, and/or a Hold power from your epic pool, they can all be fitted with sets that add to ranged defense (Stupefy, Mako's Bite, Executioner's Contract or Sting of the Manticore, and Lockdown or Basilisk's Gaze). Maneuvers or Combat Jumping are both easy picks to add to your defense (and possibly that of your team), along with possibly sticking a LotG +Rech or some knockback reducers. Although it was nerfed hard a while back, Blessing of the Zephyr still has nice defense bonuses for just 2 or 3 slots - I'd use it for Hover/Fly.

For your alpha slot, the best option depends on your own experience with the character. If your AoE spam routinely runs your endurance to the ground, a Cardiac boost makes you far more efficient, and a Spiritual boost lets you spam those AoEs even faster. If you can't think of anything in particular that's lacking, more damage is always a nice extra (particularly with the Rare boosts coming shortly).

I'd go on, but I need some sleep.

On a Scrapper, I'd give the nod to KM, since they get larger damage buffing, more of an impact from damage buffs (higher base damage numbers, no Fury to dilute the effects of extra +damage), and critical Concentrated Strikes to instantly recharge Power Siphon.

For Brutes, Clawz FTW.

All four Leadership powers can be incredibly useful, it's just a question of which take a higher priority for your character. Maneuvers has its perks - it's more +def for the whole team to stack with FFG, it covers ALL types including Psi, and although it's not THAT much +def, a Defender can get it up to about 5%. Assault = more damage for the whole team, and yes, that 18.25% on a Defender DOES make a huge difference. On a team of 8, that Assault layer can deal as much or more damage (through teammates) than your own direct attacks. A layer of Tactics can let the whole team hit purple-conning baddies effectively, even if they're running low-end builds, or let well-tuned builds even cut through purples that run defense buffs. It also packs +perception which can be a big deal in PvP and against select enemies. Vengeance is so powerful for a pool power that it's almost cheating - when slotted on a defender, it alone is enough to soft-cap the entire team's defenses (to all positions), along with a hefty +tohit/+damage boost. If one ally falls, Vengeance ensures that it's ONLY one ally that'll fall.

Honestly, a number of my Leadership-carrying characters have taken everything EXCEPT Tactics. Tactics is an amazing power, but I tend to team with coalition friends that also run Leadership. After one or two characters on the team take Tactics, further stacking makes less of a difference, whereas Assault and Maneuvers can stack as high as you like and still be useful (in most situations). If you're probably going to be the only one with Leadership running, and like pushing the envelope against high-level enemies, Tactics has a much stronger pull.

Siren's Call probably has the most Warrior bosses to streetsweep; it's a very rich badgehunting location, with Warrior bosses, Tsoo Blue Ink men (VERY rare hero-side), Ancestor Spirits, Sky Skiffs and generators, and oodles of Longbow/Arachnos (including Toxic Tarantulas and Seers). However, you are forced to fight them at-level there instead of whomping on greys, and you need to keep an eye out for other players. Striga has a fair number of Warrior and Family bosses, and they're easy to crush, if you prefer. Talos has a few, but they're very scattered / rare. The only real perk of doing it in Talos is that you don't need to go out of your way.

Like many defeat badges, the fastest way to find the targets is to run an 8-man mission against the target villain group. There aren't a whole lot of Warrior missions, but if you can get a group together for them (or are just hardcore enough to fight huge spawns by yourself) then it'd probably be faster than streetsweeping.

I'm a big Shadow Maul fan - it's the best DPE in the set (with multiple targets), the only AoE in the set on a reasonably low cooldown, and with a quick sidestep (<1/2 a second move delay) I can almost always at least get 2 targets (if not 3+) when I'm in the middle of a group of baddies. Back before they fixed the minor glitch that let you run back while activating melee cones to massively buff the range, you could easily get 4-5, and it was epic. Now, it's merely quite good.

As to the actual question, "How many targets do you need to reliably hit for Shadow Maul to be a preferable attack instead of just plowing through with your default single-target chain," ...well, it depends. In terms of raw damage, hitting two targets with Shadow Maul is higher DPA (and more endurance efficient) than using any of your ST attacks. However, that ignores time spent waiting for the right angle, damage procs, and the survivability concerns of being locked into a 3 second animation during really intense battles. If you don't have a twitchy, click-based armor set (WP is gold here) then the survivability hit is minimal, although a DM/DA or DM/FA might have to seriously consider when to use it safely. You could proc out your ST attacks into a crazy buzzsaw chain, but you could also proc out Shadow Maul, and it gets to proc on every target it hits which further boosts its damage. If/when you can line up 3+ enemies, it's worth your while to do so even if it takes a second or two to line it up, and watching the flurry of orange numbers fly from 5 targets at once is just beautiful. The real test is how often you can line up multiple targets, and how fast you can set it up. That's a question of personal playstyle and skill, which will vary from user to user.

/EM is one of the best pairings for AR, with BU + Boost Range alongside the stuns to stack with beanbag and hard-hitting smashing/energy attacks for the baddies that shrug off lethal damage like robots (which also get BONUS smashing damage). It's straight-forward, it hits hard, and it works.

On the other hand, /EM trades its immobilize for a knockback punch, meaning it has no ability to leverage Ignite. Ice would have significant survival perks in Ice Patch, Shiver, and Chilblain, and lets you easily leverage Ignite for great ST (or very tight AoE) damage. Different sets allow different tools and approaches to combat, and the best one to use will likely depend on the situation.

The debuff doesn't stack, but Venom Grenade is still a great AoE attack, and if there are multiple targets, you should still spam it for the raw damage.

Archery/EM blasters unite!

Seriously though, any secondary or pool power you activate will cause you to put your bow away; the real question is how often you need/want to use them in combat. Either /Dev or /EM can be played to rely exclusively on your arrow attacks for damage (or as close to it as you like), and just hitting Boost Range / Build Up / Caltrops / etc. as needed. Both sets also have stuns to stack with Stunning Shot if desired. /Dev has more gadgets to sync with a tech theme, but Build Up + Aim + Rain of Arrows is noticeably better than without BU involved, and Boost Range simply cannot be overlooked. Take whichever you like.

Shockwave is... okay. It's a low damage AoE attack with guaranteed knockback. It doesn't really mesh with the standard soloist Sonic strategy of Siren's Song + ST power, since throwing stuff around will wake it up. On teams, vs. lots of baddies, any AoE attack will likely do more net damage than a ST attack, but teammates have a tendency to hate the knockback. I usually skip it, and rely on Howl (and Siren's Song in a pinch) for AoE damage.

The main draw for Shockwave would be to clump up groups of enemies into corners, or back onto an ally's debuff patch, or back towards the tank, or so on, and to provide a little more AoE to the AoE-light Sonic blaster. If you're soloing primarily, I'd say you're fine with relying on your Sonic blasts and Energy punches.

Earth Manipulation exists - you just need to build your blaster in the Rogue Isles, where they are called Dominators instead. I know my Fire/Earth blapper gets the job done in style.

AR is actually a pretty sweet set - it has FOUR solid AoE attacks, and can really pump out the hurt on crowds. I still prefer Archery on general principle, but AR can be right up there. However, it pairs best with either /EM or /Ice, not /Dev (IMO).

/EM gives you Boost Range to turn the potent cones of AR into gigantic room-clearing beasts. You don't even need good placement to be able to hit every single enemy in a pack when using AR/EM. /EM also has BU to provide the burst damage that AR craves, and hard-hitting ST damage that you dont find in AR. Plus, Smashing/Energy punches provide a nice alternative for the enemies that resist normal bullets, and the stuns stack with Beanbag. On the downside, /EM is the only secondary that doesn't have any immobilizations, so it's nearly impossible to leverage Ignite with it. The Patron Pools can help with this, if you choose to take your blaster on a tour of Grandville for a while.

/Ice has tons of control, and is one of the safest secondaries, which can help when your cone-spamming earns you the aggro of everything in sight. It's got Shiver which slows entire spawns to a crawl, Ice Patch which keeps a couple baddies flat on their back for a while (best when used w/corner pulling), Chilblain (one of the best immobs blasters get), and Freezing Touch, a solid melee hold/attack. It's also the best secondary for leveraging Ignite - dropping an Ignite patch on top of an Ice Patch is not only funny, it's lethal. The downside to /Ice is that the melee damage isn't quite as potent as /EM would offer, and while the holds are cool, they don't stack with Beanbag like /EM's stuns would. Also, no Boost Range.

Short answer: Like all toggle powers, or powers that summon a pseudo-pet to do the real damage/debuffing, Ignite will give procs placed in it a chance to go off when the power is activated and once every 10 seconds thereafter, on any/all targets that are being effected by the power at the time. It does NOT get to roll for procs on every damage tick, turning it into a fiery version of Ice Patch. As such, Ignite + Ragnarok will have a 20% chance of knockdown when the fire first starts, and when the fire is put out, but not in between while the baddies are on fire. Whether or not this is of use to you will depend on taste, but I'd still be more confident with Webnade + Ignite than Ignite + hope-it-procs.

As Silverado said, if you want to really get the top-end, maximum-effectiveness IO sets (like Kinetic Combat sets in melee attacks for the huge defense boost, and Luck of the Gambler +Recharge IOs), you'll likely be looking at a budget in the billions.

That said, you can do one heck of an impressive job with 400M or less, even with today's market prices. Frankenslotting for max enhancement bonus per power using the cheapest set pieces available to do so means that you can effectively squeeze 7 or 8 SOs into 5 slots, and can be reliably done for well under 1M per slot. Adeon Hawkwood already mentioned how well this can work for even bargain-basement heroes.

Given that you have a healthier budget to work with though, you can easily expand into getting some real sets as well. As a simple example of what cheap sets can do for you, 5 pieces of Crushing Impact (a melee damage set) can get you 68.9% accuracy, 97.5% damage, 42.4% endurance reduction, and 68.9% recharge - about 25% more acc/rech than you could get with 6 common IOs. However, since you have (almost) the full set, you also get global accuracy, recharge, and +HP set bonuses on top of that. If you had five melee powers, all slotted with 5 Crushing Impacts, then (adding the set bonuses they grant to their straight enhancement values) your attacks would be slotted for 103.9% acc, 97.5% dam, 42.4% end, and 93.9% recharge - in effect, you've got more than 10 SOs worth of enhancement in only 5 slots, and you get 5.6% higher max HP to boot!

Crushing Impacts can typically be had for under 1M per piece, including crafting fees - one or two pieces might go up to 2M. Most power types have an uncommon (yellow) set like this that give very solid enhancement values and set bonuses, but can be obtained for almost any character with a few million to their name. With a couple hundred million, you could also get a handful of the rarer (orange) sets, and/or a really nice unique or three.

Edit: As Organica said, some Smashing Haymakers and Reactive Armors would probably be awesome additions for a WP looking to add more durability to their build instead of just more offensive oomph. They give bonus defense as a set bonus, along with some other minor perks.

Howdy, Ray. I'm a long-time Shadow Shard fan who also plays primarily on Freedom. If you'd like another active player (rather than fillers from your friend's alt account) on some of these Shard runs (like Faathim's, which is also loaded with 4-player simul-click missions), I'd be happy to join you. My main is an Archery/EM blaster who routinely plays tour-guide around the Shard thanks to range-boosted Teleport and Recall Friend; if you'd like something a bit more support-oriented, I could pull out a Sonic/Sonic defender instead.

Shoot me a PM if you guys would be amenable to another teammate tagging along sometime, or a tell in-game to @Doctor Kumquat. If you'd rather go it alone, then best of luck - hopefully the daunting length and monotony of Dr. Q hasn't discouraged you from trying the other shorter/better ones.

Getting enough recharge for perma mind link on a Fortunata (with longer base cooldown on ML than widows would have) is tricky enough with hasten. WITHOUT hasten, you're going to need ~140% extra global recharge from set bonuses, on top of directly enhancing its recharge with def/recharge IOs/HOs. In other words, if it's still possible without gimping your build, it'd require a pretty outrageous budget.

Mace Mastery is pretty nice, but my Bane is my favorite VEAT, so I may be biased.

@Cende: Huh... you know, all this time, I had assumed that the shattered screen that was supposed to display Grandville on teleport beacons looked that way on purpose. My take on it was that Recluse's oppressive regime had Grandville in such a tight grip that the cameras taking the photo were found by Arachnos and destroyed to prevent do-gooders from gathering intel on it, or something like that.

Pocket D using the same pic seemed odd, but it never really connected that it was a bug. Huh.

If you want to take a vacation to Grandville to earn your Scorpion Shield, you can at least take some steps that way while waiting to burn through your Hero Merit stock. While they WILL all go poof if you complete the alignment change mission to go Vigilante, you can still run the 10 tips to unlock the vigilante alignment mission. Just don't tip over until you clear your stock out.

Edit: unless the reason you can't spend em for another week is because you've been saving them up to direct-buy a purple or PvP IO, and you need to get more before you can cash them out. In that case... yeah, you can take Ice Mastery as a filler if you really want a S/L defense shield, and then use the free respec they hand you upon completion of your patron arc to pick up the Scorpion Shield instead.

Temp Invuln, Unyielding, DP, and (later) Invincibility are you 4 core defensive powers, yes. That said, the passives aren't that bad. In one of Castle's semi-recent passes over the set, they got some handy debuff resistance, and a large part of why you would play Invulnerability (at least imo) is Temp Invuln. + RPD + Unyielding + Tough for the highest constant S/L resistance around. On tanks, Invuln can actually hardcap their S/L resistance at 90%, all the time, on top of their considerable defenses from Tough Hide and Invincibility (and ideally some set bonuses too). Brute numbers mean you're significantly squishier than an Invuln tank normally, but an orange insp or two (or some Lucks) can shore the gap up when needed.

Of note, Invulnerability probably fares better in Atlas/Mercy than it would in Nova on a brand new character, simply because Praetorian enemies (PPD and Clocks especially) have much larger quantities of non-S/L damage from right out of the gate. WP has High Pain Threshold and Fast Healing which provides a buffer against anything that comes your way.

WP has incredible regen, and given how brutes usually roll, being the energizer bunny and never stopping for anything is sort of awesome. However, it has noticeably lower resists to compensate and a weaker taunt in its taunt aura. With WP you can fall back on inspirations when facing harder packs, but it has no emergency clicks from the set other than Strength of Will at L38. Either you can handle something, and be in the green all the way, or you can't, and you'd better hope you're packing mitigation from your primary. Either approach is viable, and each have their problem spots.

Sonic/Sonic and Rad/Sonic are both phenomenal pairings. Either way you go, you'll be fine, and have a rockin' character concept to boot.

Sonic/Sonic is handy in that while a number of teams end up with tons of +defense/-tohit, very few teams can resist-cap everyone. Sonic Resonance is a pretty rare set, but provides dramatic levels of protection - in a vacuum, Force Fields can offer much greater protection to the team, but resist buffs are much harder to access and more reliable in slowing down a sudden takedown enough for reactive measures to be taken. Sonic/Sonic defenders also pack more (sustainable) -resistance debuffing than any other character (aside from long-recharge debuffs like Fallout and Heat Loss). The set as a whole is very loose and low-maintenance, so you can buff up your allies and spend most of your time blasting at will. On the downside, the Resonance set is very ally-focused, and if you aim to solo, setting up a second build is highly advised, so you can focus on your secondary and power pools. My Sonic/Sonic could still solo Rularuu missions on Invincible with ease, but you could find a better soloer.

Rad/Sonic, as Jock Tamson would tell you, is the best at everything. It's the swiss army knife of defenders, able to heal, rez, nuke, buff, and debuff almost everything there is to be debuffed. Rad/Sonics are monstrously effective against Archvillains, with their -regen, -res, and -damage, and monstrously effective at regular hordes with their -tohit toggle and other tools. They can solo or team with ease, and you really can't go wrong with them aside from getting high on your own power and biting off WAY more than you have any business chewing.

Every enemy within the debuff AoE will have a separate proc roll on them when the power is first applied, and then every 10 seconds thereafter to whatever happens to be affected in the AoE at that point. That is, some but probably not all of a group will take randomly damage from the proc on any given tick, and the possible targets of the proc are based on whoever is being debuffed at the time.

If you have Hurdle / Combat Jumping, you can get to a whole lot of exploration badges that would appear out of reach. If you just try jumping up the obstacle, you can get to places like Keen Sighted, most of the ones on the tops of statues, and the tops of almost any building with windows or scaffolds. Many other badges, like Master of the Airwaves at the top of the Grandville tower, can be reached without any travel enhancements at all - they just require some more creative / cumbersome routes to get there.

In any case, anyone out of Praetoria can go to Firebase Zulu or Grandville to buy a 2 hour jetpack for 10k inf, and anyone even within Praetoria can buy and craft a jetpack temp power recipe (or buy/find one on another character and email it to your alt).

I'd think it *should* but I don't have any evidence one way or the other.