Miladys_Knight

Yep real early in I9. He bank rolled himself by sniping influence transfers.

He wrote a guide that was well received by some and vilified by others.

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Like so many blasters I see here today you completely forgot the SMACKDOWN! Seriosly. Don't you want to defeat your enemies in a brutal and efficient manner?

Hover has turned blasters into wimps.[/rant]

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Besserwisser, could you please explain what you mean?

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Besserwisser is talking about ignoring most of your secondary power set (many of which are melee attacks, especially in /Energy and /Electric) by staying out of melee range with hover.

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Hover also lost it's knockback protection. You will want either acrobatics or a Knockback Protection Invention.

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Is it better, then, to get Super Jump instead of Flight? That's the primary reason for Hover, IMO, because I like flying. Actually, I should say, is Super Jump alright for a blaster? Normally, I found that blasters benefited from Flight, since they can get away from baddies quicker.

I am working on the other changes you mentioned, but I wanted clarification on this.

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It can be. Each travel power has it's advantages and disadvantages.

Leaping gives blasters many benefits.

Combat Jumping gives unsupressed movement, immobilization protection, and a small amount of defense for a mere pittance of endurance usage.

Jump Kick is a decent attack no matter what anyone else has to say about it.

Super Jump allows you to "Leap tall buildings in a single bound"

Acrobatics gives you enough Knockback Protection to allow you to ignore all most all KB effects in the game.

Flight

Hover gives a small amount of defense and has the added advantage of keeping you up out of melee range which in and of itself reduces incoming damage by roughly 40% (most ranged mob attacks do roughly 60% of the damage that most melee attacks do.) In actuallity it's probably more mitigation than that since most melee mobs only have 1 or 2 ranged attacks and they recharge comparatively slower.

Air Superiority is an excellent attack as well since it has a built in soft control of a 100% chance to do Knock Up to your target and it applies a -fly effect to your target that lasts for 30 seconds. So if you are hovering and a flying enemy gets in your face Air Sup will ground him again.

Fly lets you travel out of even the range of snipers.

Group Fly..... well this is a HIGHLY situational power that is quite honestly less than stellar.

Teleport

All your teammates will love you for having recall friend.

Teleport foe can be used for effective pulling.

The teleport power can be tricky to use until you get in a good bit of practice but it makes PvE immobilization attacks pretty useless against you since you can still travel. Using Boost Range with Teleport gives you the fastest travel power in the game.

Having an immob applied to you as a teleporter can actually be a good thing since many immobilizes that are applied to you also have built in Knockback protection. This means that mobs like Avalanche Shamans that like to immoblize you are giving you KB protection from their friends the Storm Shaman and all those annoying little KBs the Zombies have in their ranged attacks.

Speed

Gets you Hasten which plays very well with defiance 2.0

Flurry, meh.... next

Super Speed gives you some PvE stealth when you have it toggled on. If you include a +stealth invention or another +stealth power you have PvE invisibility to most enemies in the game.

Whirlwind.... meh, but the 2 good powers in Speed more than make up for the clunkers in this pool.

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I'm not seeing where Milady's build has 84% defense debuff resistances?

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You won't if you are looking in Mid's. You will have to get a calculator or a pencil and paper out.

Mids doesn't take into account the extra DDR from slotting Membranes in Active Defense, nor does it take into account double stacking Active Defense boosted with Membranes.

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Doing it with enough recharge to use your best attack chain available (which for DM is Smite-SL-Smite-MG)? That's going to be harder.
And doing it in a way that doesn't see you running out of endurance in a prolonged fight? Even harder still.

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Hmmm I have to admit that I actively use Shadow Maul as a multi-target attack. My first ever level 50 was a Dark/Regen that I created in I4 so taking an extra half second to line up 3 targets for Shadow Maul is second nature to me now (as is doing the same with Sands of Mu on all my other characters.)

I rarely switch to a single target only attack chain with my DM/* scrappers until I'm down to one or 2 targets.

I haven't done a Dark/Shields yet since I have other projects running but from my experience with my BS/Shields (I have 3 of them all on different servers) and MA/Shields and using Sands in the early levels. I'd have to say that the taunt effect in AAO, even as weak as it is for scrappers, makes consistantly lining up 3 targets a breeze, which makes the DPE of SM huge, and endurance usage not so much a problem.

I'd have to try it out to be sure though.

First of all welcome back. A lot of things have changed since you left.

In issue 5 the devs whipped Enhancement Diversification on us. Short and sweet it means that only the first 3 enhancements of any one type in each power gives a useful amount of increase.

The devs recently gave us Defiance 2.0 which means that all the tier 1 and 2 primary attacks and tier 1 secondary attacks had their activation times and damage rebalanced and those powers can be used while under the effects of mez (stun, hold, sleep). Additionally the devs increased the range of Flares to 80 feet which means that Flares is no longer a skippable power. This also means that you may want to consider slotting Power Thrust's base slot with an accuracy and possibly even adding a couple slots to it.

A second benefit of Defiance 2.0 is a damage buff to all ranged attacks AND a per attack damage buff. This buff varies in both strength and duration based on the powers animation time and whether it is an AoE or a single target attack (and doesn't apply to Temp powers, Pool powers and Epic powers). This also means that you want to focus on Recharge where ever you can afford the Endurance.

Hover got a flight speed boost recently which means that swift is of lesser value. You are better off 3 slotting Hover and keeping Swift at the base slot.

Hover also lost it's knockback protection. You will want either acrobatics or a Knockback Protection Invention.

For an SO only build:

Aim and Build Up should have 3 recharges slotted.

Stamina 3 slots max for End Mod.

Conserve power 3 slots max for recharge. (You can also move this to post level 32 since you will mainly use it after a nuke)

Hasten 3 slots for recharge.

And to other builkd comments:

Stealth should have an end reducer in it. The base defense value in it is very low.

Power boost got nerfed pretty hard recently you only have a couple of powers that will benefit from it. You may want to consider replacing it with something that's less situational.

Inferno causes an endurance crash. No real need to slot it for end reduction. If you are going to be using Aim and Build Up before a nuke (reccomended!) you can get away with 3 recharge and 3 damage.

Since you are a blaster, rather than a controller, you might want to consider slotting your hold for duration rather than damage. You have other damage powers and only that for hard control.

Rise of the Phoenix. Recharge in the base slot.

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Could be a typo. Could be an infamy transfer.

[shrug]

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Could be someone that's leaving the game permanently over all the recent hubub and just wanted to give the resources to someone (anyone) else before heading out.

Enzymes only make a .7% difference in the defense of the build I posted but as I said it was a quick and dirty.

As far as end goes. The toggle costs are down to .95 end/sec, you can run a nearly seamless attack chain with out Hasten running. I only included it to allow Active Defense to be double stacked in high defense debuff situations.

Picking up the Atlas Medallion and Portal Jockey make a noticeable difference.

Crafting the +recovery base empowerment will provide you with all the extra end recovery you need for an hour. You can click hasten every time it's up in this case.

You can use OWtS as an endurance recovery tool in a long drawn out battle (Like AVs when you'll most likely be using OWtS anyway).

You can also use the Geas of the Kind ones accolade. Just pop a baby purple before you hit Geas and you will still be softcapped for its entire duration.

On the rare occasions when none of these options are available you can pop a blue insp if need be.

I'm not saying I wouldn't tweak it if I were to build one (I probably would) I just whipped a viable over the soft cap build out in 10 minutes.

It's really quite easy with DM/shields.

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So, I'm writing up a proposal on how to bring some small tweaks to FF to bring it more in line with the other Defender primaries. In my opinion, there are two ways to do this. Either make it the undisputed champion for bringing mitigation to the table or up its offensive capabilities.


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FF is all ready the undisputed champion for bringing mitigation to the table. With just SO's and adding in Manuvers a FF defender can soft cap the defenses of any team mate that stays with in 25 feet.

Doing the above gives the FF defender ~21% defense to all positions. The Coldfender is only going to be running around with about 12% all things being equal. It's extremely easy for a FF defender to soft cap ranged and AoE defense using IO set bonuses and then just hover out of melee range.

You may have forgotten that Dispersion Bubble grants everyone within it including the defender mag -8.65 protection to Hold, Stun, and Immoblize. Coldfenders don't have this ability.

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A couple things I've brainstormed so far are:

Adding a small amount of +Res to the bubbles, including the big one. Something along the lines of 5 - 7.5 unslotted, per. At 5 unslotted, with all three bubbles protecting and slotted for Resistance, you'd get ~22 Resist all. Not bad.


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Most people don't realize it but there is all ready some resistances built into the grantable bubbles.

Deflection Shield has a 40% resistance to toxic damage built into it and Insulation Shield has an 86.5% resistance to endurance drains built into it.

The FF defender has quite a bit of resistance available in Personal Force field. (40% to all but toxic.) The nice thing about it is all you have to do is watch your icon tray. When too many incoming attacks are showing you can simply toggle PFF on until they resolve.

The defense has to be active when the attack is rolled to be considered but resistances aren't calculated until the damage is actually applied. This gives experienced FFers 2 panic buttons in one power since the resistance can be toggled on and is effective even after the to hit rolls have been made.

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Also adding +10%Damage would go a long way to upping the sets offensive capabilities. However, this just focuses on the bubbles which most FFers already use.


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Since I take Manuvers taking Assault is a logical next step. That's an 18.8% damage boost in the hands of a defender that applies to both the defender and team mates.

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I was thinking that Force Bolt could benefit, without being overpowered, from a fairly long duration, Mag 1 Stun being assoicated with the power. It makes sense that getting knocked around a bunch would eventually cause you to be disoriented.


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I'm more of the opinion that a power that has a mag 18.7 KB should do quite a bit more damage (smashing of course) than 7.23 unenhanced at level 50. Equivalent damage to that of Power Bolt (Mag 1.45 KB dealing 36.1 for the unenhanced level 50 defender version) would not be out of line and would give the set the offensive capabilities that it is lacking.

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I was thinking that Repulsion Bomb (is that the name? Sorry, no mids on this computer) could also use a damage buff. I don't think it'd be overpowering at all to make it into a very decent AoE attack.


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Repulsion Bomb got a buff recently. It had it's KB changed into KD and its damage is now 36.1 unenhanced at level 50. It is also one of the last, if not the last, TAoE power that doesn't have a target cap and it has a very nice 40% chance to do a Mag 2 stun.

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I was also toying around with the idea of suggesting some -Def and maybe -Res for those repelled back by the Force Bubble.


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The probem with Force Bubble that makes it too situational is it's radius. The power is radius 50 which means that any melee toons (keep in mind that Scrappers and Tanks aren't the only melee focused toons/power sets in the game) on your team are fighting on the outside edge of Force Bubble which puts them out of the range of the defense provided by Dispersion Bubble. It also means that these mobs are going to be outside the range of many of the available defender secondary powers (especially tier 3 heavy hitters) so you are limiting your own ability to do damage when you run the power.

The best fix that I could think of for Force Bubble would be to decrease it's radius to 20 feet. It would give the defender more control of where they are pushing mobs, especially on indoor maps, it means that melee toons would still be fighting inside Dispersion Bubble, and the defender will still be in range to use all secondary powers (including the nukes) with only the exceptions of Short Circuit and Irradiate.

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Anyway, I'd love to hear some input on what everyone else thinks would improve FF without bringing it into the realm of overpowered. (Well, at least compared to other defender primaries.)

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You just did

IMO the best thing that the devs could do for the FF defender (and all defenders that prevent incoming damage rather than repair it) is to rework Vigilence so it provides the same level of benefits no matter what primary or secondary you choose to play.

Heh, That's the way I'd play it also. Since you are planning on staying in melee I wouldn't drop Glacier. It can come in very handy when Hibernate is down as a panic button if you haven't used it actively as an attack.

As far as mostly ranged attacks go, if you like melee range and can handle melee range, well then, you can still use ranged powers in melee.

You probably won't have to move out to the edge of the spawn to use shiver since it has an arc of 135 degrees. With that kind of arc if it's on your computer screen you'll probably be hitting it. If you can get enough +rech shiver will stack with itself. You should be at the -run speed cap with Arctic Air and Shiver and you are definately at the -rech cap but this will give you the same effects for mobs that reduce them due to purple patch or rank.

Of the 3 available slow powers the one that is least effective is glue arrow I'd skip it too.

As far as the Super Speed thing goes have you considered trading Super Jump for it? You will have combat jumping for low objects and you can take Hurdle instead of Swift from Fitness. That will give you decent jumping height and you can always fill in with a Raptor Pack or Zero G Pack when it isn't enough. The Raptor Pack should last you all the way up level 40 when you can get into Firebase Zulu and buy another.

I like the stealth that Super Speed gives and I like PvE invisibility from adding a stealth IO into the mix.

Oh, before I forget to mention it. If you haven't all ready rolled this character you'll want to make sure that you go with magic or tech origin. The ranged starter attack that you get from either of those origins will allow you to light your own Oil Slick.

If you've all ready rolled and went with different origin don't despair. The Rune of Warding temp power that you get from Croatoa will also light it and it can be endlessly renewed by flashing back on the story arc that awards it.

Here's a quick and dirty soft capped DM/SH that uses no purple sets that I cranked out in about 10 minutes.

Melee def - 50.5
Ranged - 49.3
AoE - 46.5

Def debuff res - 54.68% and with Active defense double stacked DDR should be around 81.68% which is why I included a bit of a pad above the soft cap.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

QuickandDirty: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Shadow Punch <ul type="square">[*] (A) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage[*] (3) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance[*] (3) Touch of Death - Damage/Recharge[*] (5) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance[*] (5) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (7) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)[/list]Level 1: Deflection <ul type="square">[*] (A) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[*] (40) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[*] (42) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[*] (48) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed[*] (50) Luck of the Gambler - Defense[/list]Level 2: Smite <ul type="square">[*] (A) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage[*] (7) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance[*] (9) Touch of Death - Damage/Recharge[*] (9) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance[*] (11) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (11) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)[/list]Level 4: Shadow Maul <ul type="square">[*] (A) Obliteration - Damage[*] (13) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge[*] (13) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge[*] (15) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge[*] (15) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (33) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage[/list]Level 6: Battle Agility <ul type="square">[*] (A) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[*] (42) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[*] (42) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[*] (50) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed[*] (50) Luck of the Gambler - Defense[/list]Level 8: Siphon Life <ul type="square">[*] (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage[*] (39) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance[*] (39) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge[*] (39) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge[*] (40) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (40) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)[/list]Level 10: Active Defense <ul type="square">[*] (A) HamiO:Membrane Exposure[*] (17) HamiO:Membrane Exposure[*] (43) HamiO:Membrane Exposure[/list]Level 12: Combat Jumping <ul type="square">[*] (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range[*] (17) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance[*] (19) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)[*] (19) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed[/list]Level 14: Super Jump <ul type="square">[*] (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range[*] (25) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance[*] (33) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)[/list]Level 16: Swift <ul type="square">[*] (A) Run Speed IO[/list]Level 18: Health <ul type="square">[*] (A) Regenerative Tissue - +Regeneration[/list]Level 20: Stamina <ul type="square">[*] (A) Endurance Modification IO[*] (21) Performance Shifter - EndMod[*] (21) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End[/list]Level 22: True Grit <ul type="square">[*] (A) Numina's Convalescence - +Regeneration/+Recovery[*] (23) Numina's Convalescence - Heal[*] (23) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Endurance[*] (25) Miracle - +Recovery[*] (43) Miracle - Heal[*] (46) Miracle - Heal/Endurance[/list]Level 24: Against All Odds <ul type="square">[*] (A) Endurance Reduction IO[/list]Level 26: Soul Drain <ul type="square">[*] (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff[*] (27) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge[*] (27) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance[*] (29) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance[*] (29) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance[*] (31) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up[/list]Level 28: Hasten <ul type="square">[*] (A) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (31) Recharge Reduction IO[*] (31) Recharge Reduction IO[/list]Level 30: Phalanx Fighting <ul type="square">[*] (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed[/list]Level 32: Midnight Grasp <ul type="square">[*] (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage[*] (33) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance[*] (34) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge[*] (34) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge[*] (34) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (37) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)[/list]Level 35: Shield Charge <ul type="square">[*] (A) Obliteration - Damage[*] (36) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge[*] (36) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge[*] (36) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge[*] (37) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge[*] (37) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage[/list]Level 38: One with the Shield <ul type="square">[*] (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%[*] (43) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/Endurance[/list]Level 41: Boxing <ul type="square">[*] (A) Accuracy IO[/list]Level 44: Tough <ul type="square">[*] (A) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance[*] (45) Aegis - Resistance/Recharge[*] (45) Aegis - Endurance/Recharge[*] (45) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge[*] (46) Aegis - Resistance[*] (46) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance[/list]Level 47: Weave <ul type="square">[*] (A) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[*] (48) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[*] (48) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure[/list]Level 49: Grant Cover <ul type="square">[*] (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed[/list]------------
Level 1: Brawl <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 1: Sprint <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 2: Rest <ul type="square">[*] (A) Empty[/list]Level 1: Critical Hit



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It is quite viable but I'd offer these bits of advice:

Arctic Air costs 1.04 end/sec. Even with very heavy end red slotting you won't be able to run it for more than a few seconds prior to stamina.

That said. I'd swap Arctic Air and Shiver around in your build.

Glacier can be stacked on top of EMP to lock down large swarms of bosses. This will happen on Taskforces (especially Manticore) and in many MA missions.

Against non-massive multi-boss spawns you can open with one or the other and follow up with a single BoI or Ice Arrow to lock down the whole spawn and 2 bosses.

You have 2 PBAoE powers in your build. Artic Air and Glacier. All the rest are ranged. If you aren't going to be spending much time in melee and if you are considering dropping one of your PBAoE's (Glacier) then you may want to consider dropping both of them and staying at range (you have the tools to do so.)

Artic Air is quite a slot and endurance intensive power to use as a simple passive defense for those few times when a minion or lieutenant closes to melee range.

All travel powers are play style choices to be honest.

I have several blasters with Super Speed, a few with Flight, a few with Jumping and one (a Fire/Fire) with Teleport. Each type of travel has it's advantages and disadvantages. Once you learn how to get around easily with each type you can tailor your playstyle to your travel power or tailor your travel power to your playstyle.

I couldn't respec out of burn fast enough.

The negatives:

1) 2.03 cast time for an 8 foot radius PBAoE.
2) Mag 50 Avoid.
3) 51 ticks of 3.34 damage (unenhanced at level 50) over 10 seconds.
4) Because of 2 and 3 above you will only actually get about 1/10 the damage potential of burn to actually apply to most mobs. Even with Hot Feet maxed for -run speed and Rain of Fire running in the area of affect.

The positives:

1) It's cheap on endurance cost for the damage and benefits it brings. (Combat Jumping is still cheaper and gives you unsupressed movement.)
2) It gives mag -15 immob protection and -1,500% immob resistance for 27 seconds. Which means it's .03 seconds off of perma right out of the box.

Combat jumping's immob protection is mag -8.3 and it gives 1.75% defense. In the last year I can recall 3 instances where mag -8.3 immob protection wasn't enough.

BTW you don't need either if you take Teleport for your travel power.

Smoke Grenade has two effects.

1) A perception debuff. In Pve this is auto hit. In PvP it requires a hit check.

2) A to hit debuff. This requires a to hit check in both PvE and PvP.

As such the power probably "should" allow the accuracte to hit debuff sets to be slotted.

[ QUOTE ]
I was browsing for a better build than my current AR/Dev, and I really, really like this one. Thank you, Rhyder. We obviously think quite a bit alike on our preferences.

But I want Fly on mine. Where would you build gurus put it? Instead of Smoke Grenade? With two Fly enhancements?

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I would drop sniper rifle. Slug has a 100 foot range a single level 50 Range IO would make it 120 feet (a snipe is 150).

At level 47, replacing the damage enhancements in Slug with Centrioles, would give you Slug with a 156 foot range. It's about 1/2 the damage of the snipe but it casts way faster and can't be interrupted.

It would be easier to just buff AR's damage to make up for missing out on Aim. Something similar should happen to /Dev to make up for missing out on build up.

They both need more work. Except for animation changes on AR nothing has really been done to either to balance out changes that were made to the game globally in I5.

Post I9 many /Dev powers can be duplicated without sacrificing anything simply by slotting set IOs. If those IOs are correctly balanced for the game that tells me the powers that are worse than or nearly equivalent to the IOs are NOT correctly balanced for the game.

It doesn't increase it's damage per se. It just means that each tick has a higher % chance to hit and actually deal it's damage instead of missing or being deflected.

Most Pet and Psuedo pet powers behave this way.

1) Yes. Any time any IO'd out toon plays, an XP locked toon plays (especially if they are sidekicked up to a higher wealth earning level), anyone exemplars, every bit of influence created need never be spent. This is true whether the toon is level 50 (though 50s create a much larger total of influence) or not. More influence enters the system than leaves the system. I don't believe that the 10% transaction fees at Went's, fees for costume and difficulty changes, and enhancement costs, whether it be standard or the crafting costs for inventions, actually accounts for all the influence that is produced.

2) Maybe

3) Several ideas here.

a) Base empowerments could be purchased with inf rather than by using salvage. This would make base empowerments much easier to use. Instead of Crafting an Empowerment you are purchasing an empowerment from the Empowerment vending machine (similar to buying insps from the auto doc.)

I'd suggest somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 inf per character level per buff.

b) Temp powers could be made available also (the "fixed" section of the market comes to mind). Current examples include the Jet Pack vendor in the Shard (I personally think they should have charged more than 10,000 inf for 2 hours of flight time) and the Went's teleporter (10 k per one use). There are some temp powers that you can only get through Mayhem/Safeguard side missions that are fun (and some dev spent development time on it why not get more use out of it as an influence sink?) but most people never even see these temps.

They could also set it up so you have to "buy a permit to use" (and an associated badge for the badge hounds) to unlock the temp before you can buy the actual temp power. (Kind of like spending the money for hand gun training and a license to carry and THEN having to go actually buy the gun and THEN having to buy bullets.)

(I'd gladly pay repeatedly for a temp power that did absolutely nothing except raise the accuracy of all my OTHER temp powers to 95%)

They could also set the above up so that SG's could add a "temp power vending machine" with all the required "the SG members must do X, Y times to get the plans to build this vending machine" stuff that they did for unlocking other base items. (Perhaps it could be a number of completed AH transactions?)

c) Manticore's wedding was a fiasco the way they set it up. They could have solved the entire problem by "raffling tickets" through the AH at say 1,000,000 inf each, randomly picking out the lucky winners and setting it up so that the account that "spent the money" on "the winning ticket" (for multiple account holders) got an invite to the training room and only those accounts had access to the training room for that day. Poof problem solved and instant influence sink.

The devs could hold anual (or quarterly or holiday or anniversary) events like this. It would give the game an extra influence sink and the devs a chance to get their heads out of their spread sheets, have a little fun, and meet and spend a bit of time with the folks that pay their salaries and have enough interest in the game to go one step further than simply paying their monthly (quarterly/yearly) subscription fees.

They could also use the same system to "raffle a dev(s)" like PERC did.

The trick in all of the above is to make it so that players can opt out of all of it if they want that way new influence sinks are not seen as punative.

You are welcome. Glad you like it. My Arch/Dev/Munitions is my second favorite blaster.

The low damage nuke would have to be end crashless. The idea behind the nuke is to eliminate every thing in range (barring that 5% of mobs that are always missed) and leave any bosses crippled to the point that the team can take them out in one or 2 more shots.

A lower damage version doesn't play well with defiance 2.0. The devs pretty much said (by their actions) that blaster defense is killing stuff before it can kill you. A low damage nuke more often won't do that as effectively though it will be much more effective at drawing aggro onto you.

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Am I crazy or is there no travel power in that build?

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Hover got a buff a couple patches ago. The speed is decent again if you slot for it.

You are welcome and good luck.

From my point of view that looks much better.

As far as sets go don't be afraid to start early. Once slotted an invention never degrades. Level 10 IOs are always better than TOs, level 20 IOs are always better than DOs and level 25 IOs are equivalent to even level SOs. Even if you only craft what drops you are better off than slotting standard enhancements.

As another example: Your caltrop slotting gives:

Slow: 66%
Recharge: 66%
Endurance discount: 0%

If you were to slot a level 35 Pace of the Turtle End/Rech/Slow, level 35 Tempered Readiness End/Rech/Slow, and a level 30 Curtail Speed End/Rech/Slow you would get these values:

Slow: 54.10%
Recharge: 54.10%
Endurance discount: 54.10%

That's in just 3 slots if you keep all 4 and add in a level 30 Impeded Swiftness End/Rech/Slow you would have 71.35% to all values at level 32 and you'd never have to upgrade those enhancements again.

It's definately something I would urge you to consider.

If you have trouble with earning influence early, mid or late game there are lots of good guides in the Market section of the forum. It's never too early to use inventions.

Ok there are some things in your build that don't make sense to me. You seem to be combining short ranged powers with a hover blasting style.

Are you going to be dropping down and setting mines and a caltrop patch then pulling the mobs in with.... short ranged powers?

As a general rule of thumb for */Dev. You need to slot accuracy in all Pseudo pet and pet powers. (They don't benefit from targetting drone and need their own accuracy.)

That means that Ignite, Trip Mine, Time Bomb, and Gun Drone all need their own accuracy slotting.

Defiance 2.0 allows blasters to fire thier tier 1 and 2 primary and tier 1 secondary attacks while mezzed. When you are mezzed Targetting Drone is not detoggled but the benefits are supressed. This means that in order to hit with these attacks while mezzed they also need their own accuracy slotting (Burst, Slug, and Web Grenade.)

With the exception of Caltrops you've skipped all your controls, Bean Bag, Cryo Freeze Ray, and Taser.

3 total slots in swift are giving you less extra fly speed than the 3rd ED reduced enhancement in Hover. You should really only go with the base slot here and use the other slots in other places.

The to hit debuff from Smoke Grenade has a to hit check. The -perception is Auto Hit. If you are using it for the -perception, then the base slot with a recharge is good enough. If you are using it as a to hit debuff then it will require extra accuracy. As a side note that to hit debuff enhancement is adding less 1% to your total defense this to hit debuff is further reduced by purple patch and by critter rank. In essence eliminating virtually all the benefit that this slot is providing.

Cloaking device gives a base defense of 1.75% at an endurance cost of .26 per second. It also includes a 35 foot radius stealth.

Replacing this power with Combat Jumping slotted with an Unbounded Leap Stealth IO gives 1.75% defense at an endurance cost of .07 end/sec. The Unbounded Leap Stealth gives you a 30 foot stealth radius and combat jumping also provides a -8.3 mag protection to immobilization.

You can save the slot in CJ for a Defense Enhancement by putting the Unbounded Leap Stealth in Sprint. You just have to remember to toggle Sprint on and off to get the benefits of the stealth.

Gun Drone does not play well with Mines and Bomb. You'll have to dismiss it to keep it from aggroing stuff if you are planning on toe bombing. Not only does it need accuracy slotting as mentioned above but it really needs end red slotting and damage slotting. This power costs 39 endurance to cast (almost 1/2 your blue bar) and has to be refreshed every 90 seconds for maximum benefit. This is a power that is a skipper if you aren't going to 6 slot it. There is not a comfortable in between.

Surveillance is a defense debuff (and a resistance debuff as well) power. Even with Targetting drone you will want accuracy slotting since you will be using it on armored targets and will need to punch through the initial defense to get the benefits of it. You should also slot it for defense debuffs at least one slot preferably 2.

Don't be afraid to use set IOs. You can mix and match sets (refered to on the forums as Frankenslotting) quite cheaply often times for less than replacing your degrading SOs once or twice. Defense debuffs, to hit debuffs, to hit buffs, and slows can all be had cheaply with just a bit of patience at the market.

EDIT - Typo