Muon_Neutrino

As a soft-capped shield/ tank who went on his first Tin Mage a couple days ago, I can state that soft-capped defenses will not save you from actually being hit by the slows. I live around 50% to all normally, and I was above 60% most of the time with maneuvers and whatnot, and I still was regularly getting 5 or 6 sets of that blasted slow stacked on me in big fights. It's hard to tell in those chaotic melees, but I think what's happening is that the slow is being applied by those burn-patch-looking attacks, so even if you're softcapped it's just rolling 5 times a second until it gets lucky (at which point the debuff persists for an annoyingly long time). Even with grant cover's 30% slow resist, I was still seeing recharge numbers near -200% a goodly chunk of the time. Even an icer who actually took permafrost for 80% slow resist would be significantly affected by that much slow.

Now, being a set that doesn't need to rely on a heal at least means that your mitigation (unlike your secondary) won't be shut down by those slows, but I wouldn't say that defense specifically is any real help with the slows themselves.

Regarding this TF as a whole, I might be a bit leery of shield and ice, simply because of their lack of s/l resist for that final fight. Even with tough for about 45% S/L and a bunch of +HP, my shielder still would lose 75%+ of her HP if bobcat connected. An ice tank could probably be one-shotted. I think invul is probably in the best position overall here - tons of S/L resist, can be softcapped to the most important types, a goodly amount of DDR, and even some minor debuff resistances. Sure, dull pain won't be recharging fast, but the set's still in a better place than something like fire, dark, or elec. The only worry might be psi - I wasn't paying too close of attention, but do seers show up a lot?

Yeah, but that's hardly the majority of doms. There's also a few blasters that have enough mitigation to not live and die by their insp tray. Besides, aren't things supposed to be balanced for SOs?

This is not true. Knockback is always directed radially away from the *caster*, not the point of impact. The only way m30 grenade will send enemies flying in multiple directions is if you, the caster, are standing in melee range of the target you are shooting with it. This particular misconception is sort of a self-perpetuating myth, because if you hear it and accept it, you never get a chance to see that it's wrong since you don't take the power.

Now, I still do agree to take buckshot instead of m30, but more because buckshot is overall a better attack and meshes better with the other cones in the set. With buckshot, flamethrower, and (eventually) full auto, you'll have plenty of AoE damage without having to use m30.

For AR/traps, I would suggest skipping m30 grenade, triage beacon, and time bomb - none of them are especially necessary. Sniper rifle is also not needed, but it can be useful, and you should have enough room to fit it in if you want it. Beanbag is an OK stun to put an annoying target out of the fight, but you don't have anything to stack it with, so it won't work on bosses. Skippable, but like sniper rifle, still could be useful and you should have room. Everything else is definitely worth taking.

Well, apart from dominators against PToD EBs, anyway (yes, that issue still annoys me).

Oh god, I have to try this. That sounds awesome!

I agree a fair amount with the sentiments here, but I would actually suggest /sonic. Like /ff, sonic is a less busy secondary, and sonic actually needs the endurance support of conductive aura and static field even more than ff does. And it seems to me that sonic's resistance debuffs would help the offense-light elec/ set, given that it does have melee-oriented pets.

As far as I know, no. You can't turn off inherent resistances, you can't revert the mez system changes, slows still don't slow, and powers still do drastically different damages than in PvE.

To elaborate on what Vidszhite said, unless you specifically went to a difficulty adjuster and enabled the setting "I would like to fight (Heroes/Arch-villains) at their full strength, not as Elite Bosses", you're going to be fighting downgraded EBs, not full-fledged AVs/heroes.

The reason you have problems with them is that, even though these AVs/heroes have been downgraded to EBs, they retain the special mez protection power AVs get - the purple triangles of doom (aka PToD), which gives them mag 50 protection from most controls. This means that, 50 seconds out of every 75, they are almost immune to mezzes except for sleep and immobilize. So you can't hold these sorts of EBs with any reliability, and therefore of course they squish you into the pavement while they aren't mezzed.

The trick to soloing purple triangle EBs is careful usage of inspirations. Your primary might not be able to keep you alive against them, but your inspiration tray can. Fill your tray with as many purples and reds as you can, backed up by a few greens/blues. Pop the purples 4 at a time if you're using small insps or 2 at a time if you've got mediums or larges - this will cap your defense for 60 seconds, making it very hard for the EB to kill you. Pop equal numbers of reds to help you kill him faster, and use the blues and greens to keep you going and patch up any hits that leak through. Make sure to have domination ready, and pop it for the end refill as soon as you're getting low. Unless you're fighting one of a few EBs who cheat even more than usual (Synapse, I'm looking at *you* with your immunity to slow and immob and your cheatyface autohit damage-dealing whirlwind ), this general pattern should be more than enough to finish them off.

Also, if you can, try to earn the Demonic accolade - the accolade power you get for this will also cap your defense for 60 seconds, so you can use this to substitute for one set of purples so that your insp tray lasts longer (it's not that hard - a few exploration/history badges, one badge mission you can get in ouro, and a 'kill 100' badge). Finally, use medium purples if you can, since you only need 2 instead of 4 this also helps your insp tray last longer. Last I checked, you could usually get them for reasonable prices on the market if you're willing to place some lowball bids every time you log out.

I'm no PvPer, but I imagine they're still waiting for a way to turn off the *rest* of the i13 PvP changes - the DPA stuff, the mez changes, the gutting of slows, inherent resistance, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard any PvPers have *anything* good to say about the current system (can't say I blame 'em).

Before you blow your stack any further, re-read what you wrote originally. If someone didn't know any more about whatever game you're talking about than what you said, I fail to see how they could be faulted for reaching the same conclusions that ClawsandEffect did. You wrote that 'the open world PvP adds a lot of excitement' and that 'pvp is a huge part of the game' - I'm not sure how an otherwise uninformed reader is supposed to reason from that to 'they obviously are going to have the majority pve servers with no open world pvp'.

And frankly I fail to see what's 'half ***' about his post. While he may have been mistaken about open PvP being ubiquitous, that doesn't make his objections to the *concept* any less valid. Just because you obviously disagree doesn't mean he's wrong.

Funny part is, his post is directed against a particular syle of PvP and class of pvpers (which definitely do exist) and he specifically mentions that he occasionally PvPs and enjoys it, and the response is to start ranting about 'pvp haters'? Think about that.