Deacon_NA

Recharge and slows are two different things. You can't enhance recharge debuffs in any way. The slow enhancements you're slotting are affecting movement speed.

No there isn't one and hey, why the heck not? Let's also go the other way for an Ice app.

For fire, I'd want to include Bonfire, which is already in MM and Blaster fire epic pool. Even with the proc nerf it's still nice.

I use both of these pools frequently for MMs, Blasters, Trollers and Doms. I'd certainly like to see them available for Defs (Corrs too).

If Super Speed causes a tank to lose or not attract aggro, then, as is said so often on these boards "you're doing it wrong". Yes, SS, has -1 threat. Guess what happens to that -1 when you turn SS off? Or better yet what happens when you jump in and start doing the things a tank's supposed to do?

Take a deep breath, it's all ok. Tips drop fairly liberally through everyday play and, imo, few ATs can blitz through tips quicker than a Widow. A widow should be able to crank out 5 tips in no more than 1/2 hour.

Just to clarify, you can begin your patron arc at 35 (hasn't been mentioned in this thread, but 41 was).

If red side is truly that repulsive to you, then you can still flesh out your build with Widow powers and regular pools and be just fine.

2xp weekend was the great unequalizer. I was level 35 heading into it, 47 on the Monday morning afterward. So yeah, anyone that missed any of 2xp would see a gap. Worry not, I doubt any of the current 50s are going to be spending their team sessions doing iTrials. Personally I need all the Phalanx tfs (except Posi) and of course the level 50 content with Maria's AVs and DA are fun for the whole gang.

I use Mids to tell me whether I have enough accuracy where "enough" is a final to-hit of at least 95% against +3s. You're already there. I took the acc out of your Transfusion slotting and it still has 102% final to-hit. That's based on 30% global accuracy, which you'll lose when you exemp, Tactics and Kismet.

I know you had a specific question, and were not seeking a build review, but one thing to consider: Assault isn't all that helpful for a FSing Kinetic. I'd take one of Combat Jumping or Vengeance for that last slot and throw in an LotG 7.5.

If I had to make a baseless prediction, I'd guess that something like the proc, if not the actual OF proc, will be available at some point, in some way, outide of the summer Blockbuster. Unlike the Winter's Gift, which I personally view as a nice "luxury" pick, the OF proc is extremely in demand, as the previously mentioned market prices indicate. If I worked in the business department for Paragon, I'd see this is as a decent revenue stream to sell it in the Paragon market.

This is a pretty easy one, the fire/kin corr wins out pretty big I think. The Corr negatives you list are not all that negative in the grand scheme of things. Transference makes endurance discrepancies a moot point. Longer to get the Kin powers? Very true, but when you get to iTrials and level 50 tfs, it doesn't really matter when you got the powers.

Also Scourging Rain of Fire is a beautiful thing.

Personally I have the corr version of this that's one of my favorite characters to play. When I play him, teammates simply exist to take some aggro off, if they happen to get FSd, good for them.

Getting a better understanding of the relationship of -dmg and -res has given me a deeper appreciation of my Kin/Sonic Defender. That's saying something because I've always thought of him as one of my top 2-3 team contributors.

Yesterday when compiling the results I got upthread, I was just spamming Siphon Power and Fulcrum Shift and debuffing Diabolique (with resists of 50% to most all damage but Psi) and seeing the -dmg debuff range from -50 to -75, typically at -62.5 (final numbers after all adjustments).

Just now I went back and worked in my Sonic attacks between Siphon Powers and FSs and was able to get to -90 (cap) a good chunk of time. Mostly Diabolique's damage was -80ish.

I created the Kin/Sonic with the intent of abusing the damage cap with Kin buffs and Sonic debuffs. I had no idea the synergy worked the other way too, in debuffing enemy damage in this manner. /em Rafalca_Fancyprance

I basically don't skip anything when I'm trying something out for the first time. So I'll be taking 9/9 powers.

I want clarify that it is NOT subjected to the 85%ish AV resistances (which was already done above by Trick).

I just took my Kin def out to see what the effects of -dmg was, in actuality.

Against an even con (lvl 51) lieutenant, it was a 25% debuff that resulted in a 25% damage reduction.

Against an even con boss, a 25% debuff resulted in a 25%% damage reduction, boss had no resists. Against another boss with resists the -dmg was = (1-resist) * .25

Against an even con AV (Diabolique), a 25% debuff resulted in a 12.5% damage reduction 50% resists across the board. So there is NO AV resistance.

So, to the OP's 5 questions.

1) answered upthread
2) Pretty darn effective
3) Right, subjected to level adjustments and damage resists.
4) Answer in this post above
5) I wouldn't say -dmg particulary synergizes with resistance more than defense. If anything, it mainly "synergizes" with itself.

Here's how Painbringer and WoP are inferior to empathy for a buffbot

17%ish resists (WoP enhanced)
15%ish to-hit (WoP enhanced)
16% damage (WoP)
50% damage (Painbringer, not perma on free account)

To keep WoP perma for a free account, that doesn't pay for enhancement license, some of the resists and/or tohit enhancements would have to be sacrificed for recharge enhancement.

vs

23.7% def (Fort enhanced)
29.7% to-hit (Fort enhanced)
or better yet
38.5% def (PBU+Fort)
48.2% to-hit (PBU+Fort)
31.25% damage (Fort, so perma)
100% recharge (AB not perma on free account)

This isn't really close for a buffbot.

Pain could sneak in 5- 25% recharge by spamming Enforced Morale, but that has its downsides.

Pain can make good argument for team support but I'm not going to get into that, a buffbot is for buffing one player.

What I didn't glean from the OP was using this buffbot on a team, which was mentioned later downthread. My answers may have been a little different knowing that, but more accurately I wouldn't have offered anything since I'm against 2-boxing on teams, unless every member of the team knows what's going on and approves.

I'm a fan of an emp defender with Power Build Up. If your defense is sufficient this may not be so optimal though since PBU+Fort is a big reason to go this route. Of course Adrenaline Boost is the biggest reason.

Here are other buff-bot potentials.

Sonic/ Defender. This has been covered upthread enough. 54ish% resists is mighty fine, as well as the -30 res hula hoop, at least if you're going to be in melee.

Thermal/ Defender. Less resists than Sonic, but 30ish% resists ain't chopped liver. You get Forge for +Dmg, probably not as useful for your kin. Plus a 1-2 heal combo if things go south.

Cold/ Defender. You get the shields, a +max HP buff, stealth + slow/-rch resists (Arctic Fog) and Sleet, which will require a little coordination from a 2nd box.

For a wild card, maybe Nature Affinity. It seems to have some interesting PBAOE effects that should be easy enough to cast. I can't begin to guess how effective it would actually be as a buff bot.

No doubt a Defender would be the best buff bot, but an alternative for best buff+ dmg bot would be a MM. All of the above, except Empathy and Cold are available to MMs, with the lower modifiers, but you do get the extra damage from pets. Just put them on aggressive and, to paraphase Ivan Drago, "when they die, they die". Just resummon when enough pets have died off to slow you down.

Having said all that, given that you say your defense is high enough, I'll echo suggestions for Sonic. I would further suggest Demon/Sonic. Demons because of their slows, resists aura and every now and then, a heal.

I really like your slotting for Distortion Field. The +2 mag is golden and -recharge debuffs stack, mathematically at least, better than any other stacking in game. For my Beast/Time I went all procs in DF but it's hard to argue with your slotting.

Although your question was specific to DF, here are a couple of other thoughts:

Your Farsight is easily perma. I'd make the Red Fortune some flavor of LOTG for the acc bonus.

Same goes for Fortify Pack. These two changes will allow you to ignore this next point.

Accuracy bonuses aren't high enough for Time Crawl to hit 95% of the time against +3s (the benchmark I use in Mids). With the 2 acc bonuses from LOTGs above, you actually do hit 95%, without those changes you may want to use a basic Accuracy IO.

Your high global recharge, combined with Agility, gives you some flexibility in Slowed Response. Taking out both of those Underminded Defenses takes recharge from 22.01 seconds to 24.12 seconds. Perhaps 2 Lady Greys, including the proc + debuff/recharge, would be good.

Since you're in the Heat Mastery epic, I do want to point out that Bonfire with the kb2kd proc, even post adjustment, is still very very nice. I'm inferring from your post that the "problem" you're solving in this pool is aoe damage, so Bonfire instead of Fire Blast would provide aoe damage and control.

Those points are all nuances, except for the Farsight point, which I think is important.

I just want to point out the Mako even is scheduled for Justice when we next meet. Might as well do that and get a spiffy yellow name, at least until we're tired of it. Based on prior events of this sort, that'll be about 5 minutes for me.

I'm turning my attention now to what to make with NA, I'm thinking a MM makes sense with all the pbaoe buffs. So this post caught my attention. I only played to about level 12 or so on Beta so I can't really comment on the best slotting of the NA powers.

I'll start with generic comments.

The pet upgrades should be slotted with End Red IOs, not Recharge Reduction.

Are you taking Acro for the mag 2 hold protection? If not, I'd dump that and put a BotZ -kb IO into one of Recall or Super Jump.

I'd throw a Numi proc into Health and Perf Shifter into Stamina. Might as well throw a LotG 7.5 into Veng.

You may want to reevaluate some of your 6th slot bonuses, specifically for Aegis, Dark Watchers, and Doctored Wounds. The psi and toxic resists aren't the worst thing, but there may be better things to use, for example a Steadfast 3% for one of the Aegis slots. I'd probably move 2 Dark Watchers to Regrowth to get 5 Doctored Wounds.

I'd want to find a spot for at least 2 of the 3 pet def ios. If you're solo mostly I'd use the 2 5% ones, if on teams, especially in iTrials, then the MM ATO proc would be preferable. Yes it sacrifices 3% of your ranged def for 10% to all for pets.

I'd throw a stealth IO into sprint, but I value stealth highly.

Now, on to comments on powers I know little about.

For Lifegiving Spores, I'd probably go with 3 parts Numi and 3 parts Efficacy Adaptor to get some bonuses. That's a "season to taste" thing.

I'm curious about Overgrowth. It takes massive recharge to get it close to perma. Not sure if that's a worthy thing or not. To help with this recharge I think I'd skip Recall Friend for Hasten and move an extra slot there (from DW).

Here's the original build with the modifications above:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.96
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Necromancy
Secondary Power Set: Nature Affinity
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Zombie Horde -- SvgnRt-Acc(A), SvgnRt-Acc/Dmg(3), SvgnRt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(3), SvgnRt-Acc/EndRdx(5), SvgnRt-Dmg/EndRdx(5), SvgnRt-PetResDam(7)
Level 1: Corrosive Enzymes -- Acc-I(A)
Level 2: Regrowth -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(9), Dct'dW-Heal(11), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(40), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(42)
Level 4: Wild Growth -- Aegis-ResDam(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(39), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Aegis-EndRdx/Rchg(39), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(40), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(40)
Level 6: Enchant Undead -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 10: Spore Cloud -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb(11), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(42), DarkWD-Rchg/EndRdx(42)
Level 12: Grave Knight -- BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx(13), BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx(13), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(15), BldM'dt-Acc(17), BldM'dt-Dmg(17)
Level 14: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(15)
Level 16: Lifegiving Spores -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-Heal/Rchg(19), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(33), Numna-Heal(43), Efficacy-EndMod(46), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(50)
Level 18: Soul Extraction -- ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(A), C'Arms-+Def(Pets)(19), ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(34), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), EdctM'r-PetDef(34), ExRmnt-+Res(Pets)(36)
Level 20: Wild Bastion -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(21), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(21), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(25), Dct'dW-Heal(33)
Level 22: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(A), GSFC-ToHit(23), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(23), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(25), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(31), GSFC-Build%(33)
Level 24: Super Jump -- Zephyr-ResKB(A)
Level 26: Lich -- SipInsght-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(A), SipInsght-ToHitDeb(27), SipInsght-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(27), SipInsght-Acc/Rchg(29), SipInsght-Acc/ToHitDeb(29), SipInsght-%ToHit(31)
Level 28: Rebirth -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 30: Acrobatics -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(31)
Level 32: Dark Empowerment -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Entangling Aura -- Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Hold(36), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(36), Lock-Rchg/Hold(37), Lock-Acc/Rchg(37), Lock-%Hold(37)
Level 38: Overgrowth -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 41: Scorpion Shield -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(A), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(43), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(43), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(45), RedFtn-Def(46), RedFtn-EndRdx(46)
Level 44: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(A), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(45), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(48), RedFtn-Def(48), RedFtn-EndRdx(48)
Level 47: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Vengeance -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- ULeap-Stlth(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(7), P'Shift-End%(9)
------------

I'm going red for Scorp Shield. My plan is to fast track it by going vill Monday and Tuesday, rogue on Wed/Thu on through to the next Sunday session, then back to hero > vig for the following Friday. With a little luck maybe I'll be 45+ (40 now) next weekend and have a Recluse mission available.

I do think it's very useful to keep in your toolkit and I'd always include it with a Trapper. Except... Defenders have a right to skip it out of protest. MM, Corr and Blaster Trip Mine all do the same damage. Defender TM damage is 65% of all of those. That's just lazy. I'm not going to make this a crusade, because I'm afraid the answer may be to adjust MMs to 55% and I like the power way too much on my MM to give that up.

Hybrid Support works just fine. Billy is correct, the 2nd post is not. I just verified seconds ago.

This has just become an issue for me, as I'm incarnating a PD Corr. Did a Keyes last night and was having the same issue as OP. I started looking for text in chat bubbles and moving toward them so even if I couldn't ST heal them I could aoe heal + aura heal. Not foolproof by any means, but it worked better for me than seeing oOWulf3433nOo say "DIS" and searching for him/her among 24 players in the league window. I like Monkey's idea but it strikes me as something that about 10% of players would be able to execute. I'll take it to heart and make such a bind.

I just want to be an advocate for PGA. A -25% (troller value) damage debuff is far from negligible. In fact only Darkest Night offers more among the aoe damage debuffs for trollers. You'll most appreciate it against those mobs you can't control, such as an AV, who won't resist the debuff as part of AV resistances. Also I've noticed it does sleep mobs these days, for whatever that's worth.

While I was validating the -dmg number above (Mids says something different) I checked imp behavior around OSA, still buggy, they dance around the perimeter while it's lit. Really a bummer.

I too like the combo of Flash + Smoke. Flash takes Cloud Senses which are even better than DW for bonuses (6.25% rch at 4th slot).

I was about to unretire my Fire/TA for Bonfire but opted instead to use my blaster for Bonfire abuse (no fire cages to invalidated it).

Personally, leveling up I'd take Cinders early, just to have it as an option. When you need it, you're glad you have it. Not a big deal though.

Earth has a lot of aoe control tricks up its sleeve:

Stalagmites - aoe stun with 90 second recharge. On a mature, high recharge build, the duration outlasts the recharge, which gets to be usable pretty much every spawn.

Earthquake - kb patch with the same recharge numbers as Stalagmites.

Volcanic Gasses - the prize of aoe holds. Another patch very friendly to procs.

So that's Earths "big 3" that even leveling up you'll have something available to you for each fight.

Single target hold and both immobs are standard fare.

The pet is in the top half of control set pets. Sturdy resists + not too bad st damage.

Quicksand is very nice with the just the base slot, for def debuffing and slows.

Lastly there's an aoe sleep. It has the flaws of a click sleep, but it's not the worst thing to include, though it's the easiest thing to skip.

There's a secondary bonus of lots of -def, helpful in lowbie land at least.