Ben_Arizona

You can't increase its speed, but asserting (as ClawsandEffect did) that its downside is that you can't use IO sets for benefits in it is a bit absurd - it takes no power picks, so you have as many powers to use for IO sets with it as without it. Instead, it frees you up to take other powers and use the appropriate sets in them. If you're desperate for places to set-mule BOTZ then nothing about Ninja Run prevents you from taking CJ or Hover anyway - you've gained build flexibility at no tradeoff (except, of course, for your ten dollars).

I would take the power selection off that checklist, since most builds I know of would be taking Hurdle or Swift even without Ninja Run so they could qualify towards Stamina. If the cost is that you have to do something you would be doing anyway, it's not really much of a cost. The cost of enhancements is sufficiently trivial to not make much difference, so the "real cost" is two slots (which, granted, is a significant cost).

That said, the sarcasm is misplaced - the fly speed cap means that, at the point of investing two slots in either, Ninja Run is indeed faster than Fly.

Unless you pay $10, apparently.

I don't disagree, but this should be "two of the same great powers", not "the same two great powers". Your phrasing implies that there are only two great powers in Storm, which isn't true.

Honestly, Gale isn't even all that great at the beginning. It has its uses, but it's never going to be an all-the-time power.

On the other hand, I'm not sure there are any powers that give you quite the kind of safezone that Hurricane does. Hurricane is a beautiful, beautiful power, Tornado is another great staying-alive tool (once you've learned how to use it as such rather than fixating on it as a damage power) and the stealth from Steamy Mist synergizes quite well with the low-aggro Mind powers (although +stealth IOs have rather deflated primary/secondary stealth powers for a lot of people).

While I don't have strong opinions about Poison, I think -recharge is underestimated. Its value is less in preventing an enemy from attacking and more in the fact that enemies with one or two particularly annoying powers won't be able to use that particular power as often - AOE mezzes and debuffs are the first thing that comes to mind, but there are other examples.

Conveniently, every troller primary except Mind Control gets a pet. That said, I didn't have much trouble soloing with my ill/emp even before she got her Phantasm, but for a pure soloist ill/rad or ill/storm would have gone much more smoothly. I admit that when I think of "solo-friendly" I tend to think of "doesn't have problems playing solo" rather than "I will never be on a team, ever", so I don't mind having a few powers that don't see use solo if they're good enough when I'm teaming.

I don't know about defenders, but /emp controllers can solo just fine, depending on the primary. The same is true of /thermal controllers, and they're actually a bit more solo-friendly thanks to their debuffs. You'll do better on a team, but it's not mandatory.

It took me a while to come up with something for Ice Armor, but I'm pleased with the effect. The character is dressed as an Ouroboros Mender, and her two costumes are identical except for one having a fire aura on it. When she armors up, I trigger a costume-change macro, and the ice armor plus the fire aura gives a pretty credible Pillar Of Ice And Flame effect.

The costume concealment from Ice Armor is actually pretty mild when it's just the armors, and is considerably better in that regard than a stony running multiple armors. In my opinion it's Icicles and Chilling Embrace that push it over the top to an indistinguishable spiky glowy block.

In terms of "building for", added recovery is the easiest to get significant amounts of. However, when you use IO sets you'll tend to end up with at least moderate amounts of endurance-cost reduction in your powers regardless, so that helps too.

Really? I would think you could replace the KC Rech/End with GWE Acc/Rech without losing too much - you already have three other enhancements in it that give end redux aspects, so unless I'm missing something you should be pretty well discounted even with that.

The problem with porting Poison with just that tweak is the possibility of Mind Control/Poison controllers. Poison can assume the existence of pets on Masterminds (even a petless Mastermind still had the option of taking the pet powers) but on controllers you need to allow for the possibility of a set without a pet in it.

I did the same thing with my Mind/Storm until power customization made it possible to make Levitate look more like the various wind powers in Storm Summoning. Telekinesis is still off the table, though.

I'm not sure what makes it a billion-inf build, other than the purple procs (I'd be surprised if those were necessary for this) and Health/Stamina uniques (probably much more significant). I notice you're very heavy on procs to build up your offense, which makes sense, and health/regen bonuses as your main defensive set bonuses (btw, another Ghost Widow's Embrace piece in KO Blow would get you an easy health bonus you missed).

I assume then that your survivability has less to do with the build and more to do with intelligent use of Poison's debuffs and mitigation? I don't have much Poison experience, but I know from rad and dark just how effective even a few solid offense debuffs can be at turning swarms of enemies into kittens.

Heck, sometimes it just gets applied to anyone who uses their healing powers at all. There've been a few overreacting backlashes against the very idea of healing on the Defender forum that I've seen.

To the OP, I actually wasn't trying to troll when asking if you could make a character with this level of petless effectiveness who also took the pet powers. I'm genuinely curious as to (a) what you did and (b) how well it would work with a five-power penalty, which is pretty significant. The former I wonder just because you've implied you do some uncommon and/or unpopular things with this build (beyond the obvious one, of course ), and the latter because I'm wondering if I might be able to apply the general ideas usefully.

You acknowledge that what you did is essentially a stunt, although an impressive one. I would like to know more about it than just a "HA! Doubters, TAKE THAT!" sort of post, because I am curious about non-stunt applications.