Sailboat

You're in no danger of hitting the damage enhancement cap using set bonuses; the largest damage bonus available on sets is 4%, and that's on only a few purple sets. You can put as much +damage on there as you can stand, subject of course to the Rule of Five.

Recharge is a particularly good bonus to slot for on your powerset combo, since it increases your offense but also brings your great Healing Flames power back up faster. Here's a list of sets that improve recharge.

It wouldn't hurt if you got some defense; it'll make you somewhat tougher. But for several reasons, I wouldn't make a lot of effort to slot for defense; you start out with zero and you have no protection against defense debuffs taking away the defense you would have paid so much to acquire.

Speaking of protecting yourself from debuffs, if you're going for recharge in Healing Flames, you might want to consider the Temperature Protection power (which resists recharge debuffs, also known as slows). You can also buy a Winter's Gift unique IO that adds more slow resistance.

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hi,
I have a lvl 50 SS/WP tank

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No you don't.

Well, I tried to go on Test last night, but it's been a long time, and the loading bar predicted another 45 minutes of file checking before it would open Test. I was starving to play after being busy offline almost the entire weekend, so I canceled it. I'll get Test loaded some time soon -- and then I'll see if Test is usable again. Several issues ago test became unusably laggy for me-- like several seconds between each frame -- and it's never gotten better. Maybe it's fixed by now.

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Make it optional by Account Management and then there's absolutely no argument against the request.

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Well, except that when people lose characters they always complain and get mad, even when its their own damn fault. Making it an optional process doesn't change people's basic nature. Look at all the posts in these forums where someone comes in breathing fire and slaughter and then their problem gets fixed and they feel slightly foolish...except that of course the deleted characters we're talking about here wouldn't get fixed.

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Paranoia at it's best because I seriously do not believe this many people have someone gunning for their precious account just waiting to delete their characters...and if you do maybe it's you.

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Well, I've posted about my actual experiences with actual people -- not me, not made up, and (over the years) numerous incidents. You seem to have ignored my examples and to be under the impression this is a made-up problem born of paranoia.

Honestly, people will be unhappy either way. The Devs have chosen this way -- but they have to choose one way or the other. They've imposed minor inconvenience on everyone to spare a significant few from total disaster.

Now you're just flogging them for this choice -- lambasting them as paranoid in a public forum -- because you don't want a minor inconvenience.

Really, it's unbecoming to be nasty about such a minor thing.

CAK recharges faster than Crane Kick (8 seconds vs 10 seconds).

I really like Thunder Kick -- the...directness of it, the sound effect, the blazing speed. There's always time to TK something! And then to use another kick on it! And then to TK it again, because it's still standing up, long after the other Scrappers have killed their guys and moved on!

All too often I found that stuff with even the tiniest sliver of life left survived my Thunder Kick, and I'd have to use a heavier kick, which would be way overkill and have finished the foe off by itself if I'd used it first.

So I switched to CAK and now I have three hard-hitting attacks OTHER THAN my tier 9 Eagle's Claw: Crippling, Storm, and Crane.

Incidentally, CAK's slow is handy against runners, making it easy to catch them -- I liked Crippling drug dealers on the street; they're worth extra influence and they always run.

So I'm a convert now. If I wasn't SR and hard-pressed for power picks, I'd probably still slip Thunder into my build, just because it looks cool and is fast, but I'm happy enough without it.

edit: CAK also makes a good substitute for Crane in those rare situations when you want to avoid knockback, like fighting near a ledge when yuo don't want to have to chase an enemy down the cliff. If he survives the rest of your attack chain, you can always Crane Kick him then.

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More like they left. The ones still here and talking just don't like the way it was handled.

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I have a hard time believing that. I think they're still here, complaining. It makes no sense at all to crank out a bunch of six-hour level 50s so fast you don't even buy enhancements for them, and then leave because you can't make more. Stay and slot out and play those 50s you worked so frantically to get, and complain a lot.

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The "security issue" reasoning has always seemed somewhat weak to me since other MMOs allow immediate logout to character selection and have not suffered security issues as a result.

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Have you played other MMOs?

I know lots of cases of security issues resulting from this exact situation.

For years there has been a steady stream of complaints on Diablo 2 forums about this exact issue -- family members, guests, girlfriends, passersby, or children deleting characters because a login screen was left open. I've been an administrator on a game site and we have a certain level of complaint about this problem with various games every few weeks or months. It's always somebody heartbroken that this could happen and desperate to contact support. Support can't help, of course, and the result is unhappiness for the player, the website admins, the player's guild/clan/supergroup equivalent, and of course the poor support wretches.

All that bad feeling is prevented by the password check.

Yes, I find it annoying as well. But I know why it's there.

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Is this correct? Mids shows SR having less base def than Shields and Shields has res on top of that. Am I missing something?

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You're kind of vague here. Specifically what is Mids showing? I'm betting Mids doesn't have a button saying "SR is less base defense than Shields!"

Is it showing the toggle defenses and the passives added together are less than Shields' toggle defenses? Can you list the power names and the numbers that caused you to draw this conclusion? Then we'd know what you were looking at and could give more useful opinions.

Well, the same question could be asked about an arc that is broken because the boss won't spawn, or that has a glowie behind a wall, or any other error that makes it troublesome to participate in. Do you rate someone lower for that sort of error?

Computer code is a language that shapes the mission experience, just like English language shapes the mission experience. Badly-written computer code can still permit the game to function, even if it bloats the memory and runs slowly; just like a badly-designed mission can be completed even if it's tiresome; just like badly-written English can still be understood with effort on the part of the reader. Do you reward bad coding? Bad mission design? Bad writing?

And if you don't mind the bad writing, ask yourself why you're willing to settle for poor quality in one aspect of the mission.

What's with the extended complaining from the Farm Bureau? MA's peak farmability was only a short time during the 5-year history of this game -- it's not like they removed Scrappers from the game, or anything that was part of the game culture longer than 3 weeks -- hell, you could have gone on vacation and missed the entire thing! -- and yet a subset of the playerbase is just elaborately bitter about it.

That's a hard question!

I just finished setting up invention sets on my Inv/SS tanker, so he's "hot" right now on my play list. He's well-rounded, very rugged with right the set bonuses, and looks great with the thundering SS animations. But he hasn't yet reached the level of my Fire/Fire! The Fire/Fire is even flashier, sweeping her flaming sword in great roaring circles, splashing sheets of flame through crowds of bad guys. I still plan to rebuild her with invention sets, so she's waiting impatiently for me to get around to it.

I have a high level Stone/Fire as well, who gets compliments on his concept. They're not kidding that Stone gives up mobility and offense for its stupendous ruggedness! I like the durability, but it requires a certain mindset to enjoy the character when you are thwarted by a curb.

I have a baby Shield/Axe that I like a lot -- can't wait to get to the higher-tier powers. I discovered I like knockdown on other characters, and made this one partly because it's one of the most knockdown-heavy combinations possible.

I guess right now Inv/SS holds my attention the most -- but don't count out Shield/Axe, that will be a strong contender for my gaming hours.

Yeah, I really liked Masterminds at first -- made one my main villain -- but after getting the good powers, mine gradually fell by the wayside and sits unplayed. I have more of every other AT.

A poorly slotted, indifferently-played Inv/SS tank will be quite successful and defeat most content. A well-planned and well-played one is one of the strongest characters in this game.

Currently finishing up an IO build for an Inv/SS tank. My question is, my attacks will have about 40% to 75% accuracy enhancement (40% for Jab, ~60% for Haymaker and Hurl, 75% for Knockout Blow and Foot Stomp). That's low-ish by the standards I've seen on the forums for IOed builds.

However, I will have +16-23% global accuracy from set bonuses (still deciding), and of course To-Hit bonuses from both Invincibility and Rage. Rage will have some set IOs in it...not sure which ones yet, but I think it'll get some enhancement of the to-hit number. It seems like two to-hit bonus powers would be a tremendous help in hitting targets.

My gut tells me this is plenty of cumulative chance to hit, especially since I'm not particularly focused on farming level 54 AE bosses. But I just thought I'd run it past tanker Forum opinion. Thanks in advance.

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You're only going to notice the extra defense against enemies that have +tohit, which means AE enemies with BU type powers and Rikti Drones. That's a small enough portion of the enemies you'll face (and a small enough effect compared to the benefits they'll be getting from the +tohit powers), that you're wasting +def. Go with the lower defense and higher recharge.

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You should also consider the number of enemies that have -def powers, which is not an insignificant number. Of course, you have the possibility of using elude (if you still took it) or def inspirations to carry you through times where you may face such enemies.

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Or maybe count on the fact that */SR has 99% def debuff resistance to get through those situations. If you're packing 46% +def(all), you're going to need to get hit by more than 100% -def to have any effect. To have it actually be significantly noticeable, you'd need to get hit with ~600% -def.

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I could be mistaken, but I was pretty sure def resistance was capped at 95%? If so, it'd take 20% worth of def debuffs to drop 1% of SR's defense.

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Sarrate's right. 95% is amazing but it's not quite the same as 99% would be. :P

In general, a few % above 45 can be handy. My MA/SR was clearing the Roman walls. Normally I run at 45-point-something to 47 defense at the three positions. The Romans would occasionally land some Def debuffs on me, though; so I turned on Combat Jumping for roughly another 2% defense. The Romans never got me below 45% after that -- 2% can cover a lot of debuffing when you're 95% resistant and very hard to hit anyway. The debuffs only last a short while (8 seconds, maybe?) and they can't pile enough hits on you in that timeframe to cause cascading failure.

There exist unresistable debuffs, some of which are probably bugs. COT Thorn Earthquakes (dunno about Banished Pantheon Earthquakes, but it's likely the same power), for example.

Bear in mind that, as was noted above, small improvements in recharge are increasingly hard to notice when you're already running a lot of recharge. Heck, sometimes it's not even at especially high recharge -- my hasten-less Tanker found that adding +55% recharge to Jab increased its recharge time 0.11 seconds. So we can be talking about pretty subtle net effects here.

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Just another question/thought to the OP: cant recall of-hand, but does sr scaling resist apply to toxic? IIRC, it doesnt, which means you wont benefit from any defense sr has to offer. Thi8s may explain why you do better against non-vahl's.

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For this sort of question, I go to City of Data, which supplies the following answer for the Dodge passive:

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Dodge also grants you minor Damage Resistance to all damage except Toxic and Psionic.

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edit: aha, found it.

My suggestion, if you want to solo for any significant portion of your time, is that you don't make a Granite-only build. Take a few of the pre-granite armors and slot them -- Rock Armor , Stone Skin, Minerals, and probably at least one of either Crystal or Brimstone. You might consider the Fighting Pool (Tough and Weave) as well -- not needed in Granite, but they can buff you acceptably when not in Granite form. And the reasoning is that Granite slows down your movement and attacks and drastically lowers your damage.

So for soloing, when you won't face such large spawns, you will do better damage and get ahead a lot faster staying out of Granite form. Use Granite as a panic button when things start to crumble, but stay out of Granite to kick more behind.

As far as what secondary to take, my thinking on this is to go one of two ways: either one of the more area-effect-heavy sets (Fiery Melee, Battle Axe, War Mace) to stand in groups and mow 'em down, or go with Super Strength, because its damage buff power, Rage, unlike the build-up powers won't be as badly affected by Granite's recharge penalty. (It's up for two minutes instead of ten seconds, so you can get off a lot of attacks before it fades or recycles).

Fiery Melee is probably the highest damage output of the sets I listed -- its disadvantage is it offers no damage mitigation effects, like knockdown or debuffing. But Stone Armor can be so tough that you don't really need mitigation from your attacks, so FM's disadvantage doesn't affect you as much.

I don't know much about PVP, but I think Stone Tankers will probably have to be part of a team; they're too immobile in Granite to fight other players effectively, and too vulnerable outside Granite (in PVP, that is, where players can pick on the weaknesses of the non-Granite armors. It's not so bad in reglar PVE play).

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it takes a billion or more infamy/influence to gear a shield scrapper/brute to be at the soft cap (depending on server).

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Leaving aside the "billion" figure, which I think must be an exaggeration, based on my own attempts to squeeze blood out of the market stone, my question is: what does "depending on the server" have to do with the cost of your build?

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a full set of mako's level 40-50 on infinity blue side will run you 15-25 million for one set of 6. so i call bollux to the 100m to soft cap scrapper bs.

it's even MORE expensive red side on infinity.

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Again -- what does the server have to do with it? Why mention Infinity?

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it takes a billion or more infamy/influence to gear a shield scrapper/brute to be at the soft cap (depending on server).

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Leaving aside the "billion" figure, which I think must be an exaggeration, based on my own attempts to squeeze blood out of the market stone, my question is: what does "depending on the server" have to do with the cost of your build?

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I've always gotten the impression that Stone was the one with most survivability, which made sense, since they had superior defense. Secondly came Invulnerability, which lacked defense, but instead had very high resistances (yes, getting not hit is better than just resisting, which was why I figured stone to be overall best, but invulnerability not far behind).

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Well, with typical SO slotting, leaving out the Fighting Pool:

Granite: ~31% defense to all typed damage; 90% resistance to S/L damage (assuming Stone Skin is one-slotted) and 78% resistance to other types of (non-Psi) damage.

Invulnerability: ~21% defense to all typed damage with one foe in Invincibility range (this will be higher in crowds); ~66% resistance to S/L damage (assuming RPD is slotted) and 31% resistance to other types of (non-Psi) damage.

Granite's 78-90% resistance and its decent regeneration from Rooted means that Granite would be very tough even without any Defense at all -- some players used to only slot resistance SOs into Granite to save a few slots.

Invulnerability can easily increase its S/L resistance to the 90% cap with Tough; other than that, the big improvements are made in defense, using Weave, Combat Jumping or Hover, Manuevers, and IOs.

So ultimately Granite has more resistance overall than Invuln, and better distributed, and often does not have additional defense powers (because it doesn't need it); Invuln often winds up with higher defense total (and certainly relies on it more).

So I am, as always, baffled by the perception that "Stone is about defense" and "Invulnerability is about resistance." It's more-or-less the opposite of the way I would describe the sets, if pressed -- although to be honest, I think that distinction isn't accurate: both sets have strong values in defense AND resistance.

Thanks. I slotted the IOs without carefully looking at the combat stats monitor before-and-after. I can go through the bonuses one-by-one and try to confirm, but haven't done that yet. Also, the character has a lot of set bonuses, making it hard to simply read through the list and count "small energy/negative defense bonus" or whatnot. Looking at it last night, I *thought* I saw a slightly different wording for one of them, which would imply that it might indeed be counted differently (something like "ranged small energy/negative defense bonus", maybe? I forget). But frankly I think that the bonus description would appear in the list of set bonuses even if the bonus was being excluded from actually working by the rule of five -- so you're right, comparing the real number total to the expected total by hand seems to be the surest way to establish this.

Got carried away and slotted 4 sets of 4 Reactive Armor (1.25% en/neg defense), 1 set of 3 Crushing Blow (1.25% en/neg defense), and a full set of T-strikes. Do the Thunderstrikes count as both a 2.5 and a 1.25 en/neg defense bonus, and thus I have one too many 1.25 e/n def bonuses? Or are they counted differently?

edit: "thus" replaced "this"

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[Elaine Benis]Get OUT![/Elaine Benis]

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I lol'd. I just might have to steal this.

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Just spell it right when you do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Benes

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Very interesting thread. I was dimly aware that Invuln had been reworked but I didn't realize it was now so strong. Good to know.

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The changes to Invuln helped a lot, but they also synergize well with the changes to typed defense bonuses from IO sets. Although those changes really help all the sets with typed defense, Inv is normally the highest of these, so it's in the best position to soft-cap without crippling compromises.

End result is that Inv can be very strong -- certainly it depends on circumstances, but I find myself inclined to agree with those who rank it right behind Granite builds for raw durability, and without the penalties. Other tanker primaries might be less durable but offer attractive inducements in terms of control or damage. I think that the primaries are better balanced against each other than has been the case for a long time, maybe ever, even if they're not perfectly balanced.

Well, I don't have MIDS, so I have to pick through these builds by hand, which means I just skim them usually, and I don't get to see the enhancement percentages. A few things jump out about your slotting:

Why FIVE slots in the toggles? The extra Red Fortune in Focused Fighting is extraneous, IMHO, and the other two toggles stop one slot short of granting you a defense bonus. Either 4-slot with LOTGs *or* six slot with Red Fort.

Why five Thunderstrikes in Focus? You are again stopping short of getting the excellent defense bonus, at the penalty of getting Thunderstrike's poor recharge enhancement value in a key power. Six slot Tstrike for the bonus, or better yet, frankenslot for much better recharge/acc/dmg/endred.

Touch of Death gives nice bonuses -- but the recharge is poor, again. Yank it out of Follow-Up, a power that cries out for recharge enhancement. Put it into...say...Strike, six-slotting it with the slots you'll pull out of your toggles and Tough. You're low on attacks anyway, and have slotted low-recharge sets into many of them; another six-slotted attack will be welcome.

Tough can be a mule for the Steadfast unique, or slotted up for resistance. You are too starved for slots to piddle around with the small set bonus for the rest of the Steadfast Protection set -- pull those slots out or use them for full resistance. Given your slotting shortage, I'd just stick the Steadfast unique into the default. At any rate, you do NOT need the knockback protection IO there, and it'll cost a lot. If you want another 1.5% recovery there are other places to pick it up. (Miracles in place of two of the Regen Tissues in Aid Self, for example). And pull that Regen Tissue unique out of Aid Self and put it into Health, please. Save yourself having to spam the heal to keep the bonus.

Check whether Practiced Brawler recharges optimally -- especially if you plan to exemplar. It might be worth a more traditional two-slotting.