Faultline_EU

When testing this earlier I did try it on three even level rikti mesmerists. The combat window said I phased one of them but he didn't look very phased to me (plus I died very shortly afterwards). Could have been a critical tho....

Dwarf just won't do enough damage quickly enough tho. And if you do wear them down they just run and dwarf isn't the best for following someone...

The tactics I found that work are find yourself a squishy and sneak up on them (or tp next to them using dwarf and instantly change back to human) and hit IC. If you can hold them and keep them off their feet for long enough, you can finish them off. Either that or it's get yourself some mez resist and wade in for a couple of minutes of carnage.

We seem to have gone slightly OT....

The problem is the same as the one we have in PvE - no status protection! You get held/stunned/slept half the time. I think PBs have to focus on short bursts of action. Try conserve energy, hasten and your attacks slotted with a recharge. The damage is pretty impressive and your heals are up pretty quick too. You'll need a breakfree or two, someone with CM or lightform at higher levels to make it work but you should be able to take on anyone. For a minute or two at least.

Don't dismiss nova or dwarf either. Nova can be used to hunt down a runner on low health and dwarf is perfect for a big heal and the ability to tp away when things get bad. I used to annoy loads of people doing that.

Tanks can be very active, probably just not in the way you want. We should direct the battle by picking which group is next, scanning it quickly for the biggest threat, check to see if there are any nearby groups which might be aggroed etc.. You end up being a leader even if you don't actually give out many orders.

Once the fight has started I'll typically fire off two AoE first, have a look around at what's going on with everyone and that everyone is ok, fire off a hold, a taunt, more AoE, punch the boss I'm next to to make sure he is looking my way etc. By the end of the fight I'm lucky if I've killed one minion.

I think it's a mindset about keeping everyone safe rather than applying the hurt to mobs. You can punch more stuff but the more you punch the less likely you are to spot that boss heading over to flatten the Defender...

Thanks for that everyone. Seems unslotted I can phase -1 bosses so it must be Mag 3. Couldn't phase even level bosses. Going to need two slots if I want it to work on +3 bosses... Least I know not to bother with recharge now.

On a side note, seems you can target and apply darkest night to a phased mob ready for when they come out of it. Quite handy.

Learn something new everyday.

So I never really bothered with the dynamics of holds but knew that stacking was the only way to hold bosses and the like. Still not sure I get intangibilty tho. With the default slot slotted for intangibility I can happily phase bosses. I'm guessing the power is Mag 2 but one slot would make it Mag 2.6 (boosted by 33%). Hows that work?

So what slotting would people use? One acc and one intangibility?

Aggroing two groups is not that unusual so I saw a potential handy power for those occasions. Plus on more than a few occasions I could have done with a bit of space to tp dead bodies to me and get the team back on it's feet after one of those 'it's all going wrong' moments.

So how does intangibility magnitude work then? I'm guessing bosses and the like are more resistant so you have to have higher Mag to hit them?

Does anyone use it? I know most people dismiss it straight away and I know it's a situational power that has to be used carefully but I am tempted by it. There have been a few occasions the last couple of days where phase shifting an entire group would have saved my bacon.

On paper I can't see any obvious problems with it but wondered if anyone had much practical experience?

I think sometimes it depends on the teams you are in. In one team you are providing most of the damage, tanking when needed, healing people and generally feel 'epic'. Next team you are in everyone is doing what you can do, just better. Blasters and scrappers are outdamaging you, defenders are healing, the tank is tanking and you just feel a bit of a spare leg. At least that's what I found sometimes although that improved in the 40s as I got even more powers and slotted them fully.

Can't comment on most of the choices but have you considered hover for badge hunting - save you a power choice. Or find a badge partner with recall friend to save two.

Just finishing up the figures for completion sake. Been testing Fluffy and his powers.

Fluffy Darkest Night - 80% as effective as your version for damage debuffing, ie. 30%. I'll assume the to hit debuff is also the same scale so 15% debuff.

Fluffy Twilight Grasp - Same 80% effectiveness for damage debuff so 10% damage debuff and 4% to hit debuff. Curiously it heals for 23.5% the same as the defender version and uses your hp not Fluffys (or so it seems).

Looking forward to going up against some AVs now as it should be fairly easy to debuff their damage down to 10% by the looks of it. Will be nice if I can hit an AV harder than it can hit me.

It's mainly dwarf flare - 18 End actvation cost. Not huge but adds up pretty when using it a lot (which you need to really). And as PB dwarf is not exactly high on damage, fights last a lot longer.

With hasten running I can run out of end in Dwarf after about 1 minute of attacking and thats with Dwarf Flare slotted with an endred. You could slot the form with endmod of course but I'm not sure how much that would help? Plus conserve energy is very good for human (and with lightform can give you about 3 mins of qauntum flight too).

Essence boost and Reform Essence are both good heals and very handy. Incandecent Strike and Radiant Strike are good solid attacks and you'll want to pick them up as soon as possible. Solar Flare is good but causes knockback - handy for keeping people off you but annoying at the same time (knockup would be so much better). If you are thinking about tanking in Dwarf then I'd go with Conserve Energy and Hasten - should solve the End problems in dwarf form and allow you to cycle attacks pretty fast.

Dawn Strike is fun but not that handy due to it's lack of power. Photon Seekers are stupid but good as a 'mini-nuke'. The human blasts are mostly poor (except gleaming blast) but you'll probably need one or two to fill the attack chain.

Slotting wise you need to focus on one form at a time. You'll end up being poor in all of them if you try to spread slots about. Easiest option is focus on Nova first (great for the lower levels and you only really need the AoEs slotted) followed by human and finally dwarf. Or if you wanted to get into tanking sooner, respec out of Nova at 24 and put the slots into Dwarf and then slot Nova up later on. I'm tri-form and had almost enough slots to get everything the way I wanted but didn't manage that til level 50.

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'Vokes (that also Taunt) are by proximity, visibility, power activation etc.

The Taunt power freezes agro, apart from oddities like Greater/Lesser Devoured; but Invince/CE etc. 'vokes; so you can take a creature that has been taunted once it's outside of the Taunt duration; but not whilst it's in the Taunt duration.

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Not really. I think it's your use of the word 'voke that makes it confusing. Punchvoke (gauntlet) is just a short duration taunt and works in exactly the same way. What you are referring to has been called "Hate" on the US forums and is apparently a combination of Threat Rating, Damage, Healing and other factors. I don't know if this quietly stacks in the background whilst Taunt (either from the Taunt power or Gauntlet) is in effect or starts fresh when a taunt has worn off. The taunt from any gauntlet power will stack with Taunt itself or any other gauntlet taunt - not seperate from it. Taunt (from Gauntlet or Taunt) can not be overridden except by another tank.

A comprehensive taunt guide can be found here .

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Rad / Dark /TA: Hey dont bother telling me who teh anchor is, I am pwnzing these guys! look how fast I am killing them, I am teh uber! you suck!

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I've found that with Dark, people often don't even know you are doing anything. I was on a mission where things went a bit pear shaped and when the smoke cleared I was asked why I wasn't healing. Before I could answer someone informed the group that it was because I was afk. When I asked them why they thought that they said "cos you had full End". I had to explain that I'd been using nothing but my primaries which don't use much end (especially when the team is near death) and I couldn't heal as people kept running away from me. Plus I wasn't a healer anyway. I left the team shortly after...

Could you add Sundae, lvl 50 PB. Thanks.

The to hit buffs in nova aren't doing that much for you. Slotted like that is still worth less than an SO acc so you'll miss a bit.

All good advice there and agree with it all. At your level you need to be aware of how much aggro you can safely take. Jumping straight in is the best tactic but could well cause a few faceplants for you when you take the alpha. See who is on your team and get a plan (have the empath fort you and focus heals on you, advise the Rad to lay debuffs as soon as you start running in etc..). Should help you survive the initial attacks. As you level up you won't need as much support and can just jump in when you like.

You'll soon find what works and pick up your own playstyle. But yeah, first in and last out is the way a tank should be.

Irradiate is the about the biggest defence debuff attack as far as I'm aware so you really don't want that one to miss. Not sure about Proton Volley being used as a debuff? Very slow to fire and I'm not sure the debuff is any greater than say Neutrino Bolt which you can fire off a lot more often (albeit at a closer range). Maybe one or two quick single target attacks for debuffing bosses and a couple of AoE for mass spawn debuffing? I'm no expert on Rad I should point out.

Oh, and when I tested I wasn't sure there was any defence at all with Shadow Fall, so the def buff might not be worth slotting...

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unless u slot ur mudpots quite heavily with slow ur gonna find that the disorentated foe r gonna wander away from u in any direction they feel leaving u like "hey come back"

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Can't say I've ever had a problem using Fault (and I use it a lot). It's one of the best 'tanking' powers of the set.

Definitely think you need to fit darkest night into the build. I have twilight grasp slotted 2 heal, 2 acc and 2 recharge. Against a single opponent I spam it contantly and it's easy to triple stack it for a 30% damage debuff against a +2 (as well as ~10% to hit debuff).

I also went for the speed pool to get hasten and SS for invis.

The 10% is the figure quoted by most people. As a PB it's blasters and scrappers that give your damage resistance. With 3 slotted shields running too then five will take you close to the damage cap. I've not tested it at all so the range may well be quite short as well.

10% resistance per teammate as far as I'm aware.

It's not hard too work out exactly how much of a res or dmg boost you could potentially get from the team. I'm also usually too busy atacking stuff to worry about trying to stand as close to as many team members as I can to get the buffs. If it's there it's there, if not then never mind.