Dr Harmony

I'm disappointed we havent had a mission where we have to fight dog versions of ourselves. :P

This weekend I ended up on a team who summoned and defeated Adamastor in Talos Island.

I got 10 merits and 5 incarnate threads for my troubles, which seemed pretty good going for a monster who went down in munites to a team of 6 or so.

Does anyone know what the cooldown is on this reward? Is it limited purely by availability of the recipe or is there a daily timer of some kind?

I'm eyeing this up for one of my characters, and had a few questions for anyone out there who's used it.

1) What do the drones look like? I'm under the impression from somewhere that they're little hovering things like Battle Orbs or Targetting Drones rather than bipedal robots. Is this right?

2) Red Tomax says the Shield Drone's Dispersion Bubble adds 5% Defence and Mag 1 protection vs Stun/Hold etc. Mag 1 can't be right can it? That won't have any effect. Does the Shield Drone provide useful mez protection? Is the 5% Defence correct?

3) Does the Shield Drone use its stimulant/heal on the player regularly, especially if I get held or stunned?

Pain isn't fantastic. Its a more even spread over the team than Empathy - making everyone moderately good rather than the select few very good.

It performs better than it looks on paper. World of Pain gives everyone 18% resistance to everything, which doesn't sound like a lot, but pushes everyone up a tier. Resistance Scrappers/Brutes become resistance Tanks, Fire Tankers become Invulnerability tankers, and so on. Its like giving everyone an extra dose of Tough from the Fighting pool, but to all damage.
Between that and the constant pulse of Soothing Aura you need remarkably little spot healing. I found Empathy to be much more "health bar whack-a-mole" than Pain.

Come the snipe changes in I24, World of Pain gets a boost in providing +10% To Hit to the whole team. That will make the set more popular ( but still wont be a match for Time which will do the same).

I'm currently playing a level 50 Beam Rifle/Pain corrupter, and its a combo that doesn't give me much personal survival, but shores up any team quite adequately and subtly. I spend most of my time shooting, pausing for the odd spot-heal and application of PainBringer when its up (Pains very sub-par verison of Adrenalin Boost). I need to respec to take the snipe before I24.

The significant advantages of going Defender with Storm:

- you get a better To Hit debuff on Hurricane - Corrupters get 3/4 of what Defenders do
- better values on Arctic Fog
- you get Tornado 9 levels earlier and Lightning Storm 6 levels earlier
- you can use the self heal proc in Defenders Bastion, which plays very nicely with Storm. This doesnt matter nearly so much with Water Blast's self heal though.


I'd go Corrupter with this combo, because better base damage and Scourge outweigh the above.

Yes, Imagine how silly Eye of the Storm in Staff Fighting would look wearing a wizard robe..

I really do like knockback. Nothing looks quite as superheroic, and it provides excellent mitigation, even against bosses. If you know what you're doing, it's not as disruptive as people make out.

I hate the knockdown animation. I can see the utility, but something about a group of enemies flopping repeatedly inside a fire patch or tornado makes me cringe.

Knockback in pets like Tornado is obviously beyond the player's ability to direct though. Even solo, I found it annoying, as enemies would often get stuck in the geometry or pushed into the ceiling. Thats the one time I contemplated getting that proc.

I think that would be a great idea.

I treated my current main to a 8 hour Defense Amplifier to get through her 40's, and it made quite a difference.
An influence sink like this would be very welcome.

The Defence wont do a whole lot for you since you dont have any big number Defence powers.
If you have Weave and Combat Jumping, you'll at most gain 20% of (3.75 + 2) or about 1% Defence from slotting Agility.

Spiritual may be a better choice, since you get the recharge and some meaningful boost to Energise's heal. (Plus a small boost to regen off Health)

I agree that Musculature should be avoided.

Cardiac isn't bad as it boosts Resistance and end redux - I used this on my Elec tank.
If you've got Tough and Charged Armour fully slotted (37.5% base resists) then a Tier 3 Cardiac will add at most about 5% resistance. From just under 60% to just under 65% resistance isnt a massive change - its better on a Tanker since you're closer to the cap.
Resilient offers the same figures, or a bit more if you go Core.

The improved Recharge and Heal from Spiritual probably does more for your survival.

I'd recommend Spirtual.

Thinking some more on this - I'm not entirely sold on the lack of a conventional Build Up in this set.

Its going to be a common thematic pairing with Dual Pistols and Assault Rifle, both of which lack Aim, leaving us with the same problem as Assault Rifle/Devices - a thematic Blaster pairing that lacks on-tap burst damage.

I'd reserve judgement until I've seen the numbers, of course, but all Blasters already get increasing damage bonuses as they attack with Defiance - Reach for the Limit may not be a great substitute for Build Up.

Defenders and Corrupters play pretty much the same - the two archetypes are merely a legacy of the old villain/hero divide. The balance between damage and support is slightly different, but both provide good support and decent area/single target damage on a team.

The gap between different sets is much bigger than the inter-archetype gap. For example, a Storm/ Defender is much more like a /Storm Corrupter than they are like a Empathy/ Defender in playstyel and role.

Like people have said above, Dominators are Blaster/Controller hybrids, and much less support oriented than Controllers.
A mature Dominator is often ideal for leading the charge in a team situation. eg on Carnie missions I'd always make sure I opened with an area boss-level mez rather than letting mele-ers in first, to take out the Master Illusionists before they spawned unmezzable pets. Mature Controllers would typically act in more of a support role.

The proliferation of powersets and archetypes has made nobody obsolete.

You've got the three key powers of Force Field in there - the two ally shields and Dispersion Bubble. Thats OK, but you need to balance it against existing Force Fields.

I don't think you can add any more Defence, because FF doesn't get much else, so it would be wrong for you to beat it at its own very specialist game. You've added healing, -Res and -Def, +to hit, - regen and energy management, all of which Force Fields gives up to be the master of +Def sets.

The +Def in Energy Drain is therefore a problem, I'd remove that and leave this purely as an energy recovery power. I'd consider lowering the values on your ally shields with this set to maybe +10% def, so that classic Force Fields is better at something. And take away the Energy Drain def from Insulation Shield - you're providing an alternative solution to sapping with Energy Drain.

Force Blast is currently Force Bolt (one of the better remaining FF powers) with extras. I'd be tempted to remove this power from your set and make this a no-knockback set. Some people dont like KB at all, I love it, but having no KB would help differentiate this set.
Its tricky to figure out what to replace it with. Some kind of single ally buff like Fortitude might work, but I'd avoid adding any more defensive boosts of any kind.
Maybe a small personal defence bubble? +5% Def.

I'd maybe take the knockdown away from Fortress, because other comprehensive sets like Time often have a power thats purely -Def/-Res. But, its loaded with enough limitations that its probably OK to leave that.

This would leave us with:

Classic Force Fields - protects the team better than anything else, has PFF and all the Knockback/repel tools
Force Manipulation - protects the team adequately, has a range of other standard buffs/debuffs
Cold Domination - protects without mez protection but has superior debuffs and geenral support tools liek Force Manipulation.

(While we're at it, I'd probably add a few things to classic FF - some def debuff in the shields, take the end-per_Repel off Repulsion Field, and Tier 1 damage to Force Bolt.)

The armor's pretty much the same between Mu and Electric Mastery. It very much worth taking, not only for the resistance but as a holder for the Steadfast +Def IO.
Electric Shackles are on a longer recharge than Shocking Bolt but hold for longer, I think, so they're comparable.

Static Discharge looks great, but isnt that awesome, due to you wanting to live at close range. Electric Fences provides a decent third area attack already. You dont need four.

The Mu pet could be very handy on a Blaster, I havent tried that out. Unlike VS it draws aggro from you.

Of course, for optimum effiicency you could go Fire Mastery instead and slot the Overwhelming Force proc into Bonfire, which seems to have settled down as a hugely effective area control and damage power now.

My first 50 was an Elec x3 Blaster, and it's one of the few combos where Electric Blast works quite well due to the effective sapping provided by Short Circuit and Power Sink.

I found the playstyle similar to a Dominator - neutralise the worse from range with holds, move in and sap, and then consider damage in melee ranged once they're all drained or held.

I'd suggest doing some basic IO-ing first with Thunderstrikes in your single target ranged attacks and Blood Mandate in Voltaic Sentinel and so on to get some decent defence and see how you play then. This will cost a few million but nothing major, and amp up your performance considerably.

I'd also consider a brief trip to the Isles to unlock the Mu mastery epic set, I imagine Electric Fences would be very handy. The worse thing a drained enemy group can do is scatter because they cant attack you, and thus prevent you from keeping them drained.
(And while youre there get the demonic Accolade - its easy redside and great for emergencies)

So yeah. Invest a bit of time and inf to try out a few things. This combination has potential.

I enjoy making new characters too much, and don't really get into the trials.

I've so far taken one character to anything above Alpha slot, (I got up to Lore and Destiny the long way, using Notice of the Wells and merits to create threads to create XP).

I'm currently working on my second character to unlock Judgement and Interface, and may not go much further than that.

I'm fully in favour of making all items available on the Market.

Auras, prestige slides etc have a value that's very character-concept specific. Most costume pieces do. If I have a long standing character idea (or a new one) for someone who slides along the ground on a ice patch the Prestige Slide becomes invaluable - for most other characters I couldn't give a toss about it.

I'd much rather see the slide go to characters which it fits than players who bought a certain verison of the game 4 years ago and use it as a status symbol because other players cant have it.

Same for wisp auras and everything else costume related like witch's hats and roman armour.

While I've defended the ally-only buffs in the past, I think a case could be made for making Fortitude an aura team-and-self buff now.

Other sets do it, such as Time.
And like Biospark says, keeping track of a 30 second buff and who last got it is not a whole lot of fun.

This could be good for refreshing the supply of recipes available to mid-range players.

A few months back I had a hell of a time getting hold of 5 pieces of Malaise' Illusions for my Mind Controller in the mid 30s. They weren't expensive, but just not available at all below level 50.

I'm guessing that a lot of farming and generation goes on at level 50 (for purple drops, plus mature builds). Making all Ios attuned would stop this pattern where there's a dearth of many recipes in the mid range and stacks of them available at 50.

So it would work well for people like me who favour running lost of alts and IO-ing them as I go

Looking good!

Detonation doesnt give you much in the way of set bonuses. How about swapping that set for Crushing Impact x5 in Ice Sword and the Blaster ATIO set in Ice Storm? Thats an extra 5% recharge there for you.

Bitter Ice Blast would like another Thunderstrike to complete the set. Maybe take one out of Chillblain? Do you use Chillblain much? If so, cool, its a fast attack and good place to have that hold proc I guess, but with two actual holds its probably not that great.

Speaking of which, I'd maybe switch Bitter Freeze Ray to have Basilisk Gaze x4 plus two Damage IOs, because it does dow decent damage. You lose a bit of ranged defence this way, but gain some of that back with the extra Thunderstrike I mentioned earlier.

And Frozen Armor would really like the extra slots to max out its defence. Drop Tough down to just the Steadfast unique maybe? The +1.25% S/L defence you're getting in set bonuses is going to waste when Frozen Armour isnt fully slotted.

On a pure style note - Ragnorak would be awesome in Frost Breath purely for blowing people over with the knockdown proc

First, make sure your attacks have 95% damage. Frost Breath and Bitter Ice Blast (your best area and single target attacks) are woefully underslotted.

Tempest: Chance for End Drain is useless. Add another Devastation proc.
Better yet, slot Ice Blast and Ice Bolt with Thunderstrikes.
Give Bitter Ice blast 6 Thunderstrikes too. Take the slots from Combat Jumping and Superjump, they just need one slot each. (Lotg +Rech and Zephyr -KB).

Build Up and Aim can probbaly get by with 3 Recharge IOs, 2 at a pinch.

Freeze Ray - try 4 Basilisks Gaze, they're great set bonuses and slot this power nicely as a hold rather than a damage attack.

Shockwave is great even without the OF proc.

It has 100% chance to do Knockback, unlike Energy Torrent (60%) or Explosive Blast (50%) and other mob-scatterers.

It does decent damage unlike Gale, and recharges much faster than most AoEs.

If you ever want to learn how to use knockback without too much consequence, this is the power to do it with. The worse thing that happens is you knock enemies out of range of the next Shockwave or Howl.

I disagree with that, Clave, purely because of the aforementioned Thunderstrike set.
It's cheap and has awesome set bonuses and enhancement values.

I'd also add an honourable mention to:

Eradication
4 slots give you +Endurance, +Energy Def, and a huge +HP. It lacks endurance reduction like Obliteration, but thats what the other two slots are for.

Expedient Reinforcement
Stupefy
Both sets give a +Recharge AND +Ranged Defence bonus, two of the most sought after build goals.