Doomguide
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A second vote for range defense.
And a note that, in general, I don't build purposefully for defense on my numerous Emps. Building defense requires too many choices away from maximizing my recharge and that is almost always my priority for Empathy. My Emps rely mainly on high regen from RA, self healing from HA, resistance, teammates and inspires for mitigation. The only builds I've worried about defense on were dedicated duo/small team builds typically with other Emps as teammates or otherwise not "general" team builds and in those cases the builds general hit +defense (all) effectively. I've only had one build with ranged defense as a priority and it was meant for attempting the RWZ challenge. -
Quote:You are looking at roughly a 1 in 20 chance for a lucky hit to trigger cascade vs 1 in 400 (1 in 20 x 1 in 20). That 1 in 400 also gives you just a tiny bit longer to note the debuff and use a purple to block the cascade effect. Doesn't take long for a large */x8 mob to generate enough attempts to make a 1 in 20 chance a likely occurrance over the course of a fight. Takes a lot longer for even a large mob to generate 400 to hit attempts, particularly ones closely spaced, to trigger the same potential for cascade failure.Originally Posted by Scientist
I did play around with that a bit on Test at one point when I was looking into soft capping a fire tank (which REALLY makes you look at some hard tradeoffs). I fought some Romans on the wall, taking various size purples and monitoring my defense. I can say that 55% vs 45% does definitely help, as even after one lucky hit the next hit still has to be lucky to cause cascade defense failure, thanks to the low % each debuff is. Remember the baddies have a fairly short window to get that next lucky attack in before the first debuff wears off.
It will be much less help against the Praetorian robot radiation attacks in the classic Tina arc, for example, because their debuff is much larger. It will be much less help against quicksand patches, since they are autohit and have large debuffs. It will accomplish nothing against DE dropping quartzes, since they can hit through Elude with that.
So judge based on what you want to give up in return. I didn't end up quite even getting to 45% on my fire tank, because it would have meant whiffing on most of my attacks from slots I would have had to sacrifice. It might be worth trying a few purples to experiment, like I did, before you respec. -
To be fair the positional defenses are within 1% of 45 ... I would shoot to close that gap and get to around 47 or so (which he would do with a Nerve Radial boost), but outside silly scrapper tricks this is really a non issue. I would personally be more concerned about 1) end usage/net recovery, 2) sub 90% DDR (which might make those 44% positionals more significant), 3) passive regen and to a slightly lesser degree 4) total max health.
1) I'd be looking for minimum 2.5% net recovery and want it up more around 3.0% net.
2) get the DDR at or above 95%. I'm not sure (and would want to double check it) but believe the Nerve Radial would also push this higher as well. A second slot in the passives would give the DDR and positionals the boost they need .
3) With no Medicine pool the build will need a steady supply of green inspires in any hard fighting (for instance vs a +2/x8 or +3/x8 mob of Rikti) if solo. A passive regen of under 20 is not going to cut it in my experience. Boosting Max Health would also boost passive regen. My own claws/SR is around 28 hp/sec and 1950 or so Health while my Fire/SR brute has values closer to this build. The brute is way way more "squishy" needing to use a lot of inspires while soloing +2/x8 whereas my Claws/SR chews up the same mobs while barely breaking a sweat. The difference between them is as dramatic as soft capped vs upper 30's defenses running generics or SO's.
4) Add a Kismet +6% somewhere. Accuracy vs +4's is hovering around 95% but just barely. The Kismet would give you just a bit more to go over 95%, a buffer vs getting debuffed or help vs any foes with +defense themselves.
5) I haven't played much MA but believe you want Cobra Strike slotted as a damage dealer after the last round of MA buffs. It's now a hard hitting attack which also happens to stun (roughly 290 damage vs 160 damage slotted with AA per Mids)
6) Shadow Meld ... likely as useful as your appendix or Elude, you are a soft capped /SR build. Assuming you are keeping it for Soul Storm drop a def or rech in it and call it a day.
Use the saved slots in the passives and elsewhere to beef up the positionals and DDR. -
Quote:By 16th I'd be looking to have Dark Blast, Gloom, and Dark Pit adding Tenebrous Tentacles at 16th. Personally I'd have 5 slots in both Dark Blast and Gloom by 18th. Likely only have 2 slots (both Accuracy) in Dark Pit till later (post 32 to 35) when I'd go back and slot it up more thoroughly. Accuracy enhancements to make Dark Pit hit and therefore stun the minions, breaking up the return fire is plenty good enough at this point without worrying overmuch about duration of the stun.Originally Posted by Synyster
Thanks for all the replies. I have taken some of the dmg skills, I did pick up Moonbeam but I can always respec and get rid of it at some point. I haven't gotten access to the Tentacle skill yet but I'll be sure to grab those and I have gotten Fortitude and it's great, I didn't know it lasted 2 min and recharged in 1, I'll have to watch out for it next time and cast it on another person.
So right now, my Defender is lvl 15, has 5 slots in Healing Aura and Heal Other, 3 in Absorb Pain and Fortitude. What should I slot Dark Pit with? How many slots? I can work on that skill next. Anything else is appreciated. -Syn
18th would be Recovery Aura, with both slots at 19th most likely going here all being recharge. Like Fortitude I would consider this is an asap power.
20th I'd most likely grab Nightfall.
Prior to Inherent Fitness my Empath's primary builds were always Fitness free and this carries on in only having the base slot in the 4 Fitness pool powers for me. My second alternate build tends to be the one I design for other things such as running solo and likely would have Fitness with at least a few slots added these days.
22nd and 24th are usually where I add in Leadership powers if I haven't already started them. Like Adeon I usually take Assault first and Tactics next. Tactics plus Fortitude will make your teammates land blows on foes they normally would need a bit of luck to smash. Assault plus Fortitude will make them smash them that much harder.
Next 2 ASAP powers (and final two as well) from the Empathy side will be Regeneration Aura and Adrenaline Boost (at 26th and 32nd respectively).
Life Drain is very skippable ... you're an Emp for Pete's sake
The Nuke, Blackstar, is rather optional depending on personal choice. My Emps are always rather aggressively built and played so the Nuke is almost always part of the build. The nuke is also a very good place for some IOs for the set bonuses but that's another whole level of 'complication' for later unless you like diving into the deep end of things.
And lastly welcome to the game!
Dark Lightning, Reyna Morningdew, Rianna Sidhe, Tryth and a few more Empaths running about. -
Quote:Just fyi RO is out and about and doing well. http://www.repeat-offenders.net/Originally Posted by Organicide
Ugh, I could shoot myself. I was logged in that night and was respec'ing my toon. After I came out of it, I saw the invite for the all defender ITF (I was on my FF/Dark/Psi). After reading this thread I'd be really interested in seeing if people here would be interested in starting an all defender SG. I know a few years back RO was was out and about but I haven't seen or heard from hobo healer in many many months. Let me know what you kids out there are thinking about this.
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For me it's definitely looking like a choice between Musculature and Spiritual.
Nerve and Cardiac are non-starters. Already at 95% chance to hit vs +4's and that's without considering -def powers or his ability to cap his own To Hit at over 200% when he wants. And Cardiac ... Heat Loss nails something every time it's up, about the only thing here would be nasty strong sappers ... but doubtful Cardiac is going to keep my end bar up under those circumstances either that's something Heat Loss handles with its +recovery.
Unfortunately not nearly enough of a math wizard or number cruncher to figure out how much down time is reduced and how much damage is boosted. Recharge wise Benumb looks to be see the most gain as recharge in the power is just tickling ED at around 83% from slotted (2 lvl 50 recharge IO's) while Heat Loss would likely see the least improvement sitting at 96% after ED (111% pre ED). Might even be the real gain here is true perma Hasten rather than a few seconds down time Hasten currently has.
Guessing what I'll actually do is one build with Spiritual and one with Musculature and see how they work out in actual play. -
I was strongly considering Musculature on my Cold/Ice for the damage boost (and later the defdebuffs and endmod enhancing) as I currently use several sets of Entropic Chaos in his blasts. Entropic Chaos barely hit ED effects, a full set being around 85% post ED and about 87% preED. Thinking the boost will up the damage quite a bit and still allow me to put various procs in the 6th slot for a very nice overall boost to his damage output. Likewise I'd get the buff/debuffs out of Infrigidate, Sleet and Heat Loss potentially while freeing up some slots to use elsewhere or differently.
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Quote:And I'd toss out the Erad (or Obit's for that matter) main drawback is the endred in the sets, something that you really don't need in Dark Consumption.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
The enhancement values aren't THAT bad. As I mentioned, it has better recharge enhancement than Scirocco's, so it's a better fit for Dark Consumption.
The 1.8 max end and 2.25% max HP are what make it a win in my book for an SR, both of those things are things SR wants. I'm planning on swapping around my slotting on my DM/SR brute for that exact reason (and frankenslotting Gloom with 3 Thunderstrike/3 Devastation)
I don't fight more than +2 uplevel very often, so I'm not particularly pressed about to-hit versus +4s. And I already hit the 5-cap on 5% recharge bonuses elsewhere (one of which is coming from a set of Oblits, 2 Red Fortune, 2 Crushing Impact) -
Quote:Hehe, nope I was there on Crunchtime Kayla ... getting crunched.Originally Posted by Reptlbrain
I don't think you were there, for the GanGrene Machine episode where we met our match: one of the mirror image missions where 5 boss-class empaths spawned...
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Quote:A team of 8 Empaths can:Originally Posted by Savos
I'm sure you can try as best as you want, but you lack debuffs.
Empathy gives you pathetic amounts of damage. With properly built characters you don't need the accuracy from Fortitude, though it certainly is nice.
Defender damage cap is 300%. Roughly one fulcrum shift is enough to cap everyones damage if they stand close. At this point adding more damage is pointless, it does nothing to speed things up. The only thing to increase damage at this point are debuffs which dark/cold/rad/storm all have.
Going for a 30 minute run pretty much requires some seriously fast playing, something that empathy does not provide.
Further optimization would be to have everyone with Sonic blast secondary. You could probably get hits for about 1k+ with tier 1 attacks with that much debuffing.
You won't reach that level of carnage with 5 empaths though.
Hit the defender regen cap 24-7 (roughly +2000%)
Hit 200%+ damage before slotting (8*Assault + double stacked Forts)
Readily hit global recharge rates of 200% (Hasten and AB is 170% ... doesn't take much in the way of sets bonuses to grab another 30%+, my own builds tend to have perma Hasten solo, meaning I'm in the neighborhood of 275% plus the recharge in the powers themselves)
Defenses well beyond the soft cap (8*Maneuvers and again double stacked Fort)
Capped To Hit (8*Tactics plus you guessed it double stacked Fort)
3 Empaths pretty much do all the above except the +damage (and the capped To Hit), and pathetic is perhaps a bit of hyperbole at least compared to anything other than a Kinetic who leave just about any other Defender behind as well as far as ease of capping damage. 3 Empaths will be able to drop a Nuke about every 20-30 seconds, with the nukes causing essentially no downtime (or increased risk) due to the end crash >>> I've had my end bar refill in seconds even with the -recovery from a Nuke still on me and unlike a Kinetic I have NO need to find a survivor or even worry about doing anything but tabbing and firing at my next target, I'll retoggle (assuming I need to) while moving on my next target(s). The perma double stacked RA's ensure that with 400%+ recovery left AFTER the Nukes -recovery. Only Kinetics really leaves any other defender set 'behind' in terms of ease of damage boosting/buffing ... other defenders need to match the +62% damage boost (as the Leadership will or can be a wash) from stacked Fort, and most can in some fashion either by debuffs like Tar Patch, -resistance of Sonic/*, Rad Emission toggles etc.. but the Empathy isn't anywhere near a distant last. And a Kinetic has virtually no hope of dropping a Nuke and finding a refill in as much safety as my still regen and defense capped Empath particularly against say level 54 Malta, Champions or Rikti meant for a team of 8.
Toss in the -resistance of /Sonic Blast and there's not much a team of 3+ Empaths won't chew to bits in seconds. 8 is utter overkill most likely ... except at some point the ease of destruction tends to result in forgetting to buff (and buff and buff) and things go very south rather suddenly. But that pretty much happens to any steam rolling team of Defenders if they forget to support each other.
The only issue I've ever seen a team of 3+ Empaths have would vaporize if several were /Sonic Blast. Namely AV(s), as unlike most of our fellow Defenders we have no native -regen or -resist in our primary. I think only Force Field shares this 'issue' and both Primaries exchange that for being extremely safe, comparatively, when more than one other of their primary is around (and I'm thinking even 3 FF would be hard pressed to be called as 'safe' given mez holes, no +regen etc..) 3 Empaths are about as survivable as 3 defenders of any one flavor can get. We trade that safety for being very dependent on our secondary for dealing with and defeating the hardest targets in the game. Sonic Blast makes us very very deadly even to them.
In other words what Strato Nexus said
Reyna Morningdew and Rianna Sidhe of Green Machine
Emp/Rad and Emp/Sonic level 50s
PS The most crushing team I've ever been on, did a Master run of an STF, included 3 Empathy Defenders and a Mind/Empath controller. We zerged the patrons taking on all 4 at once during that Master Run. 6 Defenders and 2 Trollers obliterated that STF.
PS2: for the record it was as I recall (this was well over a year ago) 2 Emp/Rad, 1 Emp/Sonic, FF/Arch, Cold/Arch, Sonic/Sonic, Mind/Emp and a Fire/Kin. -
Well with a Nerve Radial Boost my current build on my Claws/SR has 49.96/51.51/49.96. That's almost entirely via powers plus +6% from the Steadfast and Glad procs. That is I have only one power which gives me any +def from set bonuses, I get 1.565% ranged from having 4 Eradicate in Spin (3 of set for ranged bonus). I get about 3% from the Alpha boost, assuming roughly the same increase I could get up around 59-60% vs melee but ranged and AoE isn't going to get much higher, particularly ranged (maybe 52% ranged and 55% aoe).
But it sure isn't worth the cost in other areas, would make a serious dent in my +regen, +max health, +recharge and +acc (as in good bye Purples, potentially 3 LotG, several +max health bonuses etc etc..) Much easier to just carry some purples for Battle Maiden/Apex or I could benefit way more than normal from FF or Cold shields.
Bit of an after thought ... it was interesting to see just how much Leadership our Apex/Tin Mage scrappers were running. If I remember right 3 Assault, 3 Tactics and 4 Maneuvers when were close to each other. Those Maneuvers by them selves would add about another 9% across the board to my numbers (not 12% since I was one of the Maneuvers running) -
Making mental note to check her Psi defense in Apex. The one in A Hero's Hero is weak to Psi (-20%)
Edit: Errrm check her Resistance doh! -
Well ran the Hero's Hero arc up to Battle Maiden. As a level 54 she has a 50% base chance hit and otherwise as expected.
And tonight ran an Apex ...
Annnnd ... the Battle Maiden there has an elevated base chance to hit. Power Analyzer said her chance was 64%. -
Yep, no worries. In fact while it won't be an Apex version of Battle Maiden (with any peculiarities she might have for the TF) I'm tempted to run through Ouro till I get to her, crank it to +4 and see what things look like ...
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Quote:3 slottedOriginally Posted by BrandX
Well Inherent Fitness free'd up some powers. Some on the team might have wanted to get the healing badge with a 1 slotted Aid Other. for the +regen and +max health bonuses. Badge work might *cough* have influenced the decision a bit too .
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Yeah had a Power Analyzer III with full charges ready to go but No Temps decision made that for another time.
And wow the no vengeance sounds like it really helped cut down Bobcat's damage. I can recall on Beta taking over 9000 damage from back to back hits ... which needless to say left me examining the concrete of Neutropolis. -
In Health I'd go with Miracle, then Numina's then the Panacea ... you don't need any of these when your Auras are up, they all pale by comparison. When your Aura's are down you'll be wanting +recovery first and foremost. Personally I'd be unlikely to devote any slots beyond the base to Health on a team oriented build and it would get the Miracle.
As you say get Cosmic Burst solidly ED capped for the damage first then worry about anything else. It hits like a freight train ... make it do so. I like 5 Apocalypse and the Stun (or Stun/Endred) Absolute Amazement here. If nothing else 5 Decimations and a Stun or proc here.
If you need slots for something both HA and HO do fine with just 5 slots.
I couldn't play mine without some sort of -kb protection. Unless I missed it (the datalink doesn't seem to work for me for i19, data chunk works fine though) I didn't see any.
I'd probably not use the GSFC in Aim ... I'd rather have it back quickly and hence slot for recharge in some fashion, Membrane, To Hit/Rech from Adj Targeting, or the GSFC triple (or even just a straight up Recharge IO). Likewise slot to emphasize Endred over Recharge in Tactics, a Cyto works very well here. I'd be rather tempted to 4 slot Tactics and 3 slot PBU (emphasizing the rech in PBU of course). Minimum slots might be 3 Cyto's in Tactics and 3 Membranes in PBU. Whether the investment in those 6 HO's is worth it is a much more personal choice and of course lacks any set bonuses.
Slot Endred over Defbuff in Stealth. The value of the defense is minimal compared to other +def choices or when your Auras are up. And the end cost if using it to stealth a mission or whatnot is probably of more (if again fairly trivial) value. Or maybe this would be a good place for a -kb Karma or another LotG +7.5%
Few randoms thoughts for you, hope it helps. -
Yep foes you typically fight would have a lot to do with it. An additional factor in the utility of perma vs nearly so is the duration of many high level mezzer mezzes. One is vulnerable to not just the mezzing that occurs for the 5 or 10 seconds IW is down ... but for any mez who's duration extends into the down period ... you know like the malta stuns that last "forever". And many controller builds high recharge is a plus for many powers not just IW. IW may be just another power benefiting from the recharge needed to get it perma.
Also worth noting IW is NOT just mez protection but offers a large amount of +defense vs Psionic attacks, like a great deal of Carnie, Arachnos and other high end mobs. Large as in +34'ish when slotted up. -
Just a quick thought while I'm noticing it ... Do NOT put Kismet +6% in PFF. Kismet only works when the power in question is active. Obviously you aren't going to be attacking anything and hence needing its +6% to hit while PFF is toggled on and active. When its toggled off so is Kismet, there's no 120 seconds of functioning after PFF is toggled off.
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Very nice build Oedipus Tex. I'd probably consider moving 2 slots out of CJ and into AB making both Heal/Rech to make it a bit more of a boost for its target. Yes you'd lose a point off Ranged and S/L defense but *shrug* you'd likely have to analyze the combat logs to note the difference (and then only when RegenA was down). Increasing the regen rate of your AB target though you will almost certainly notice more particularly at a roughly 50% increased rate. This would also make AB nearly perma (maybe even would but my brain isn't up to figure it out with Hasten not quite perma)
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Hmmm 360 base recharge, perma at 90, means roughly 300% total recharge. And indeed that is the same ratio of needed recharge for perma PA (240/60 vs 360/90). A friend's Plant/Storm with IW has around 213% global recharge yielding about 2 to 3 seconds of overlap.
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Awesome fun.
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1. Were you set on those attacks?
2. Not hard to soft cap with only 1 IO, a steadfast resist/+3% defense but you do more or less have your pool choices made for you ... i.e. Fighting, Leaping etc. For normal pve missions, using inspires, you'll find 36% ample I think. With ddr capped at 95% you will be dead from rng hate before anything that could truly be called cascade failure will ever kick in. Of the two I'd grab Shadow Meld before I'd grab Elude. Both will offer enough added defense to counter getting pummeled or when you feel the need for more defense outside of using inspires, but Shadow Meld both recharges faster (much) and has no nasty crash to deal with though granted hasn't Elude's duration either.
3. That amount of net recovery worries me, it's well under 2 at which point I generally find I'm spending far more time and worry over my blue bar than I enjoy. Under 1.5 net is that much more worrisome particularly if one has no way such as Dark Consumption or Conserve Power to gain or recover more or use less. I'd be aiming for a net of 2.5 and trying to push it to closer to a net of 3.00 myself. My current live build has 2 Performance Shifter +end and a of a net of 2.70 with Conserve Power for emergencies.
4. My claws/SR was and is my main character since I started playing and has logged in excess of 3500 hours at this point. Guess that pretty much speaks as to how much I enjoy playing her. The journey to 50 happened 5+ years ago but for me the journey is ongoing yet and won't truly end till the servers shut down. -
I'll second the advice about Follow Up. It needs to hit to grant its buff ... and the harder in general the foes are to hit, the more you'll want the buff it grants, in turn meaning you need accuracy to hit in the first place. Slot it and use it as an attack and note it stacks ... the idea being you'll keep it permanently double stacked with some triple stacking potentially.
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I'd lean very strongly towards Focus at 18th. Focus is almost guaranteed to be a bread and butter portion of your attack chain from the moment you get it till you are an Incarnate.