NecroOmNomNomicon

It's the kind of thing that really only has a chance to shine on a TF or Trial where you fight single very tough opponents. Of course if you JUST wanted a Blaster for TFs and AV debuffing, you'd roll a Sonic/Mental/MM. Stack all those -resists and kill the AV's regeneration. It's actually not that bad of a build since Mental brings two more AoEs to the table and Sonic has terrible AoE.

You could always just make the greatest build ever in the history of time, and roll a Storm-Energy Defender...

My Tank shud hav 110% res to all, so wen enemies atk me i heal insted of get hurt.

In the first reply build, no performance shifter procs at all and a critically underslotted Stamina. I'm not sure that this build will play with any hopes of keeping endurance up at any level below 50, and even at 50 I don't think the Agility Alpha can make up for the lack of attention to stamina. You'd need to take Ageless to function.

Slot the PERFORMANCE SHIFTER proc and endboost, then one or two more regular invention origin endmods.

I just wanted to say that I found this very informative. I myself made a MA / Energy Aura Stalker only a few months before the big changes/buffs to EA, but I loved the character and it was already Incarnated to T4s all around before that change happen. I had to respec pretty severely to adjust to all the free defense that Energy Drain was giving me, but my build is still pretty low on Recharge. For me I often find that when hasten is down I need to use two filler attacks instead of one in certain chains, and I have both Cobra Strike and Crane Kick for this reason. The lack of a low level AoE sucks so I fit in Spring Attack.

As far as my playing has gone, I love the amazing Single Target DPS but am a bit let down by how my base damage is apparently lower than a Scrapper's despite having less base and max HP than them, and being perma'd at my HP cap without Overload. Fortunately, those Stalker changes are in the work to increase the HP cap as well as modifying Assassin's Strike to increase Stalker ST DPS more. When these changes go live I think I will fall even more in love with this character, and hopefully be able to compete with a MA Scrapper in DPS.

Seismic Smash -> Seismic Smash -> Seismic Smash!

Ouchies.

I can't believe that not only I forgot, but it seems many other people didn't mention: Broadsword. I WILL NEVER PLAY THE CURRENT BROADSWORD SET AGAIN. At one point when I was a noob I thought the set was good, many moons ago. In short order I learned that Katana is the same set but with one-of-a-kind animations that not only give it better DPA than the BS attacks in almost every example, but it also came with lower recharge times letting you IO up to your ideal attack chain with less Recharge bonus needed. Broadsword was never revisited, and just recently was basically replaced with Titan Weapons: a set that everyone is analyzing and praising... for good reasons of course. But still, Broadsword is one of the few sets in the game that is a DIRECTLY INFERIOR clone of another set... something you can't state about some of the other "clone" sets. I mean BS is an EXACT clone of Katana, to the letter, but directly inferior.

Battle Axe and War Mace have a number of (well hidden) differences such as swapped 5 and 10 target caps and misleading added effects. For instance, did you know that although Battle Axe is described in-game as the Knockdown version, and Mace is the Stun version, Axe doesn't have any 100% chance of Knockdown attacks but Mace has two... so you can create much more reliable perma-Knockdown chains with Mace! Both are great sets but with slightly different advantages. Claws and Spines are another clone melee set but they are sufficiently differentiated that the resemblance is a thing new players don't even notice, not to mention both of these sets are godlike in AoE damage. Yet BS... might as well actually stand for BullSh*t now because of how screwed the set is, and noone can convince that it isn't at the bottom of the barrel in Melee sets. That spot was supposed to be reserved for Dual Blades, but we've all pretty much learned Dual Blades is amazing if you go against the grain and play it against its design.

Sorry I never saw the reply. I keep worrying about the endurance problems this build will have. With this build if you do go Musculature and Barrier Destiny and just have a friend with a buff to fix your endurance it would be pretty godlike. That's reliant on someone else fixing the problem though.

I still think Cardiac Core is the way to go to fix your own problems though, and then Barrier or maybe Rebirth if that's more your style. The thing about Incarnates is that it really helps to diversify especially at the league level, and it's hard NOT to suggest Barrier Core as the Destiny of choice for every Scrapper... but some people need to be using other Destinies for the league to be at maximum effectiveness. It all depends how much of a team player you are. I went Ageless Radial on more than one of my Defenders just because I think the debuff resistance is something a lot of Melee's will appreciate when facing evil -regen and -recovery powers off the Praetorian enemy groups. At the end of the day though, if you want to split off on your own and go start wrecking havoc by yourself on something like an ITF, team buffs excluded, I think Cardiac Core / Barrier Core is your best bet to handle the challenges.

Ideally the formula for all ATs except the 4 Melees (and maybe Epic ATs if exceptions are made for them) should still have enough room so that if you take a +Max HP power, regardless of the fact that it may be an Epic power, AND have all the +HP accolades you should still be below the cap (BUT NOT BY MUCH). Thus +HP Set Bonuses wouldn't be useless in those builds. This will assume that every Dull Pain is +60% HP when enhanced (same as the majority of these powers).

If base HP = 1, with accolades = 1.2base, and with a 100% enhanced Dull Pain type power = 1.8base, then the HP cap should be around 2.0base.

Controllers: 1017 -> 2034 (current cap 1606)
Blasters: 1205 -> 2410 (current cap 1606)

That leaves enough room for some HP bonuses to not end up being useless. I guess most people would look at these numbers and say they are too big and that squishies wouldn't be squishy anymore. Well then maybe the ALL +HP powers including Dull Pain clones should be re-evaluted to give less. I personally would say that as the game stands now, HP caps being either 1.9X or 2.0X the base HP seems fair.


For the Melees hitting the HP cap even with a primary or secondary power like Dull Pain and all Accolades shouldn't be so easy, because building for massive HP is a viable strategy. I think a different formula is needed for the "front-line" ATs. If 2.0 is the standard for all others, then Tankers, Brutes, Scrappers, and even Stalkers should have a higher ratio... something around 2.1X - 2.3X the base HP. I am fine with making the +HP Rebirth actually useful by giving the Melee ATs a capacity for huge HP, since they're supposed to be up there getting beat up anyways. I'd like to see more than 2 ally buffs that increase HP as well, but not everyone agrees with that. If the cap was set at 2.3X, then we would see:

Tanker: 1874 -> 4310 (current cap 3563)
Brute: 1499 -> 3448 (current cap 3212)
Scrapper: 1339 -> 3080 (current cap 2409)
Stalker: 1204 -> 2769 (current cap 1606, being raised to 2000ish)

These are pretty ridiculohuge numbers though, especially with the Tanker's current base HP. Again, maybe all the +HP powers in the game should be re-evaluated to give a bit less, then we wouldn't need such huge HP caps as arguments against the powers themselves. On the other hand, who here wants to play a well built Invuln Tank who gets hit with a Frostwork and suddenly has 4310 HP, I know I'm raising my hand. Is it still "overpowered" if we are all equally overpowered? Yes... No... um... I dunno.

I'll add some hate to Devices. If Devices was re-worked to basically match Traps, make FFG into a weaker only affect self power, replace Poison Trap with Build Up, and replace any other Buff/Debuff trap with a similar looking power that just acts like a damaging pet (Triage Beacon emanates a DoT aura to enemies, Acid Mortars do more damage but no debuff) it would be a playable set. And I guess we can keep the Gun Drone, swap it in for Seeker Drones.

Eagles Claw should be relegated to the Tier9 spot, and Tier8 would be Smoke Flash... a power that will actually be useful to a squishie like a Blaster.

I think the Blaster HP cap is fine, it's in line with the other squishies. If anything the most fair solution is to make all HP caps a direct function of base HP, so that those who start with more HP have proportionately higher HP caps, and then give the four Melee ATs a slightly different forumla with a better proportion. That would level the playing field enough and still let Stalkers have more HP than Blasters. Oh **** I just used logic... and common sense... nevermind the Devs will never do this.

Sonic/Sonic yaaaay. Easy to play, no real restrictions on Epic Pools, -160% enemy Resitances all by yourself, and this is a number you can keep up permanently. The only set that could do more is Trick Arrow if an achiles proc goes off in Acid Arrow, that could bring you to -180% enemy resistances on a single target, and Howl + Acid + Disruption Arrow + really lucky achiles procs = -100% enemy resistances in an AoE... except those AoEs have different sizes and achiles procs don't go off on EVERY single target hit. Also redraw... yuck. Sonic/Sonic ftw.

Radiation Emission / Fiery Blast Defender.

yaaaaay that wasn't one of the choices yaaay but it,s better yaaaay.

Most people 6 slot Granite armor with 3 parts of a Resist IO set, and 3 parts of a Defense IO set, to maximize both set bonuses and the actual stats of granite. A common slotting would be:

Aegis: Resist
Aegis: Resist / Endurance
Aegis: Resist / Recharge

Luck of the Gambler: Defense / 7.5% Recharge
Luck of the Gambler: Defense
Luck of the Gambler: Defense / Endurance


Aegis is one of the only sets that gives any decent defense bonuses from only 3 slots (fire/cold defense) and Luck of the Gambler is pretty much the best Defense set, it's rare to use another set besides Luck unless you are LOADED with Defense powers and would violate the "rule of five". Some people wouldn't use a Resist IO set and would recommend some Hamidons that do Resist / Endurance because they do 33% each and that would really take a chunk out of the nasty Endurance Problems that Granites sometimes have, while not sacrificing any Resistances, just the Fire/Cold Defense bonus.

Does a Spiritual Alpha boost the Recharge on Mind Link even though the power can't accept Recharge enhancements. If the Alphas work as intended, the answer to this is no. The Devs are trying to bring HO's in-line with similar rules, so you COULD still put a Membrane into Mind Link, but it would only enhance Defense / Tohitt and the Recharge component would vanish into thin air. Again, this assumes their system actually works as they intend now, we'll see if that is actually what happens.

I really like the completely retarded cone size and range of both the Cryonic T4 judgements, especially on my Cardiac Core toons who get even more range out of it... unfortunately these Judgements can miss and only hit up to 32 targets... le sigh*

NERF ION NERF ION NERF ION NERF ION-whoops sorry about that, the balance fairy got me there for a sec.

I went Soul on my Fire-Fire Blaster but only for two reasons.

1: An AoE Immobilize is super duper funky fun awesome times on a Fire-Fire Blaster because it helps keep those cowardly bastards from running out of powers like... um... half my AoEs. Rain of Fire, Burn, and Hotfeet will all cause enemies to try and escape their effect.

2: Soul Storm is automatic cool points, using Soul Storm makes you cooler than the person next to you, unless they also have Soul Storm, in which case both of you receive an increased Cool-ness Factor X 1.5

It saddens me that the devs nerfed the Force Bubble effect on Tin Mage... most of my toons who have that bomb badge did so with the assist of a Force Field toon. Why won't they let a set that already has some problems at least have a few golden moments, instead of killing them all the moment players figure out a new creative use for FF.

I never see enough Sonic Ressonance players besides me. I never have, and I never will. Every time I randomly see one it's a treat, a special little achievment for the day. I see more Trick Arrow toons than I do Sonic Ressonance, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to call it the least played Buff set... even behind Poison.

As long as you don't mind Elude's crash then your slotting is fine. I personally wouldn't slot Elude as much and stick to using it as a panic button (or not at all and just taking another static buff power) because I don't like reliance on God-Mode crash powers. For what it's worth though, if you do a perma-elude build (or near perma) you actually won't need much recovery because while Elude is up you have infinite endurance. That and no amount of recovery that you can attain by yourself will beat the Elude crash, short of properly timed uses of Ageless Invocation.