Sailboat

What Grinds My Gears™:

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...And is confined SOLELY to PVP zones; does not work at all in regular PVE-only zones. That way the people who want to use it can only use it on people who consent to PVP.

Others have addressed the original question. I want to focus on this:

Here ya go:

Sets that improve smashing (and lethal) defense

Sets that improve energy (and negative) defense

Sets that improve fire (and cold) defense

Note you can sort these lists by number of slots, highest/lowest defense bonus, and so on, by clicking the hourglass symbol at the top of each column.

What about the old "Take flight, fly over them, and make it knockdown" solution we always tell Defenders to use?

Do Lightning Storm and Tornado inherit the 15% global damage buff from sets that your character gets? They are "pseudo-pets," and I think they get a damage buff that's been cast on you, like Accelerate Metabolism, but I'm not confident they get the global IO set bonuses to damage. Can anyone clarify? And the same for global accuracy bonuses?

Off the top of my head, your global recharge bonus is only 10%...generally I would slot for more if I were going to spend the time setting up an IO build on a Controller. My ideal would be to frankenslot the really best powers, or semi-frankenslot them (like 4 of one set for a good bonus then two triples from other sets to fill in as much enhancement as you can), and then look for recharge bonuses first.

We only have dogs for such a short while. Axel sounds like a great one. Condolences, when the time comes.

On the other hand, if you plan to make several characters, Inv is just as strong with any primary that doesn't do excessive knockback, which I don't think any Scrapper primaries do, but Regen's clicks causes redraw with the weapon-based primaries (and I think with certain elemental ones, if you're using fire swords, for example). But Martial Arts is not among them. Therefore if you want to have one of these two secondaries with MA and make the other with anything else, I'd make the MA one a Regen.

Taking both powers -- well, using them -- is one of the benefits of Fiery Aura that (supposedly) offsets its weaknesses. I think it makes a character stronger if you can fit both in.

That said, Build Up is better. They both last the same duration for your non-fire powers, but BU has to-hit buff that FE does not, and it recharges much faster.

A point I should make is that my concept was wielding a fiery sword, so I had to take Fire Sword. It's nice and fast too. But if you were not wedded to Fire Sword, you could switch those slots into Scorch for early fighting and late-game-attack-chain-filling, since Scorch isn't bad either for a Tier 1 Tanker attack.

That would let you move Blazing Aura 2, where I took Fire Sword, and grab something else early, probably Consume if you're a Consume fan. You'd have fewer attacks early in the build, and Fire Sword is nice, but if you wanted a different power, that's a good way to do it without deviating totally from this build.

Well, I'm still having trouble with the planner (SuckerPunch). I can't coax it into saving builds. Might be me, might be teething troubles.

Here's some output I saved over to a word processor. I tried to get the slots at realistic levels as if leveling from scratch, but didn't put hours of thought into that -- if you feel you'd finish Healing Flames earlier or whatnot, feel free to adjust.


+----------------------------------------------------------------
+ Built with SuckerPunch's Online Planner v5.0
+ http://planner.cohtitan.com/planner
+----------------------------------------------------------------
Archetype: Tanker
Primary: Fiery Aura
Secondary: Fiery Melee
+----------------------------------------------------------------

01: Scorch => Empty(1)
01: Fire Shield => Empty(1), Empty(9), Empty(9), Empty(11), Empty(25)
02: Fire Sword => Empty(2), Empty(3), Empty(3), Empty(11), Empty(23), Empty(40)
04: Combustion => Empty(4), Empty(5), Empty(5), Empty(15), Empty(15), Empty(19)
06: Healing Flames => Empty(6), Empty(7), Empty(7), Empty(17), Empty(19)
08: Hover/Hasten => Empty(8), Empty(46), Empty(50)
10: Blazing Aura => Empty(10), Empty(27), Empty(27), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(33)
12: Plasma Shield => Empty(12) Empty(13), Empty(13), Empty(23), Empty(25)
14: Fly => Empty(14), Empty(17)
16: Swift => Empty(16)
18: Health => Empty(18)
20: Stamina => Empty(20), Empty(21), Empty(21), Empty(37)
22: Burn => Empty(22), Empty(43), Empty(43), Empty(45), Empty(45), Empty(45)
24: Kick => Empty(30)
26: Tough => Empty(32), Empty(34), Empty(34), Empty(34)
28: Fire Sword Circle => Empty(28), Empty(29), Empty(29), Empty(31), Empty(31), Empty(31)
30: Build Up => Empty(24), Empty(42), Empty(42)
32: Fiery Embrace => Empty(26), Empty(42), Empty(43)
35: Incinerate => Empty(35), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(37), Empty(37),
38: Greater Fire Sword => Empty(38), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(40), Empty(40)
41: Char => Empty(41)
44: Melt Armor => Empty(44), Empty(46), Empty(46)*
47: Fire Ball => Empty(47), Empty(48), Empty(48), Empty(48), Empty(50), Empty(50)
49: Consume => Empty(49)

+----------------------------------------------------------------

A couple of points:

• The shields (Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, Tough) get 4 slots...that's 1 end red, 3 dmg resist before sets, and if you want sets, you can 4-slot either Impervium Armor for endurance or Reactive Armor for defenses. The first two shields get a 5th slot each for a Steadfast -knb IO.
  
• Blazing Aura, Burn, Build Up and Fiery Embrace were slotted up late in favor of more solid defenses and some semblance of an attack chain. Feel free to complete them earlier if you prefer.
  
• Substitute your Earth attacks in for my fire ancillary picks at 41-47.
  
• My plan is to make this build in December, when I get the 60-month Vet reward and can take Hasten in pace of Hover and still pick up Flight. You probably don't have that reward yet, so I am showing this build without it. Sub in your travel powers of choice. You could of course take Hasten/Superspeed and rely on Burn for Immobilization protection.
  
• Apparently Flight with 2 IOs and Swift slotted with a Flight IO caps Flight now, hence my slot choices.
  
• Stick either a 3rd -knb IO into Hover, or the +to-hit proc from the Defense set Kismet, and take out the slots if you are using a travel prerequisite you'd rather not slot.
  
• I know Health is unslotted and Consume is late in the build; can't have everything. Change to suit yourself.
  
• Stamina is 4-slotted so you can throw in a +end Perf Shifter proc. If you'd rather use a Miracle or Numina +recovery unique, shift that slot to Health.
  
• The slots in Melt Armor could be poached for Consume, Health, or other things.
  
• Healing Flames eventually should get 5 Doctored Wounds, otherwise you'll probably want 6 slots.
  
• I frankenslot or partially frankenslot the attacks; you can put complete sets in, but you won't be as well enhanced as with frankenslotting. Optimal recharge and damage, coupled with solid accuracy and very good end reduction, are easily possible if you do frankenslot.
  
• If you go for a defense build, spec in Weave somewhere and slot the attacks for defense bonuses (probably go for Typed defense so you can use your resist toggles with Reactive Armors)

Um....I switched to Mozilla Firefox browser 3.5 and still can't save a build.

Tried new ones and modifying & saving one of my two previously-saved builds from the new planner. When picking "Build" I can only choose blank, but since I didn't name my builds anything (like "PVP Build") I thought it would be fine. But no, each time I save I get the "saved successfully" msg and a hotlink directly to the build, but I can't find the build in my account list and I can't name the new builds something different (because it's a pulldown menu that does not appear to accept text or typing).

OK-- just noticed that names of the characters whose builds I was saving appear not on the "My Account" list, but under "My Public Profile", looking like so (formatting is different of course):

Bunker, I am currently in the throes of indecision regarding rebuilding my own Fire/Fire/Fire Tanker, and she's on the back-burner while I refit a Scrapper first. Later today I will try and post what passes for my planned build, but it's neither final nor battle-tested. You could easily sub in the Earth Ancillary pool where I have Fire. Gotta run now, will return with something that might at least give you a jumping-off point.

Do the links work right for other people? I installed a new browser tonight, so I could be doing something wrong, but they look like they all lead to the same post when I click them.