General_Masters

Tough and Weave slotted up, when added to what Stone Armor already has, makes for an INCREDIBLY hard to kill tank, especially against S/L damage, and also allows one to rarely need to bother with Granite Armor even on large teams (although some AE stuff will still require it), since you can get very high +Def numbers that way.

You cannot run either Hover or CJ with Rooted or Granite, so if you're going for a Def-heavy build you might look into Maneuvers as well despite it being rather an end-hog until you get good Endred slotting into it.

Leadership numbers for tanks aren't that good, but slotted up Maneuvers+Weave is in the neighborhood of 10% +Def, combined with Granite and a Steadfast 3% unique you should be near the cap against all non-Psi and have 13%ish to Psi (there is no +def to Toxic). you could then IO for +Def (Psi) and can get that to about 25-30% without too massive an investment cashwise (will eat a lot of slots though). The tradeoff is that you will not have much (if any) room for IOing to cover Granite's penalties so you'll still be slow while in it.

I don't complain if someone KBs a critter away from one of my squishies, just gives me some room to shut down or kill it.

I am a bit less tolerant of KB when on my Tanks (for obvious reasons), but I rarely complain (it generally has to be really bad) since I know from leveling 2 PBs to 50 that the user thereof cannot control WHEN KB will occur unless using certain powers (Tornado, Hurricane, etc.). Generally I will make one request to aim for walls, and will pull mobs to one whenever practical (not all maps allow it) . If you want to punt away a Boss and KB-juggle him, go for it, one less critter for me to worry about out of the pile beating on me.



Where I get irritated is when someone is using a power such as Hurricane or Repel by turning it on and then jumping into the middle of the pile I just accumulated, thereby negating 50% (roughly) of my protection (either via defense, regen, or self-heal) as well as blowing the mobs to the four corners which then requires I round them all up again to keep them from pouncing on the squishies.

Other than that I really don't have issues with KB, although if for some reason I cannot find a wall or corner to pull to it can get ugly if the KB is not aimed wisely.

Well, hell, my arc starts on the burning forest map, since the first mission is taking place shortly after a large battle and the idea is to eject the attackers from an advance base they're trying to set up. Good thing I haven't done the other 4 missions in the arc yet. Shot about 60 hours to hell until they give the map back.

Have done the Lusca-soloing bit myself, and if THAT doesn't prove we're crazy I don't know what will .

That aside, I was more referring to the cost/time investment to get the build to the point where it can tank a target that difficult long enough to kill it. You probably knew that though...

I haven't done much testing lately, but I did take my Ill/Rad up against some Cims on Invinc and timed the boss kill for the heck of it. Took me 35 seconds (roughly) to kill a +2 Cim boss including use of APP attacks. The build is not fully set yet, so the time is probably slower than it actually will be once I get the sets I still need plugged in, I estimate 27-30 seconds once I get a bit more damage squeezed in, perhaps 25 seconds if I don't miss.

However, Casper DOES spawn an immortal clone (lasts 45sec or until target dies IIRC) that also contributes damage (and can tank while PA is down if played right), so I wonder if that's being factored in.

Assuming it IS being accounted for, then the results are especially surprising to me given what my Ill/Rad does to hard targets.

Of course this is a primary-only comparison, but it would be interesting to see if a given debuff set (I exclude buffs due to inherent bias against Illusion's PA) has widely differing effects on the performance of the pets (since aside from Fire they will be the majority of damage pre-epics), since it is well known that Ill/Rad is (arguably) supreme against higher-order targets such as EB/AVs (I exclude GMs since it takes an INSANELY tweaked-out build to solo those these days).

On taking Stamina late:

For Bot/FF, unless you plan to run a lot of toggles from early levels on, there's really no need (IME) for Stamina for much of the game, especially with endred slotting (you'll have the slots, the bubbles don't need many for max effectiveness), unless you plan to get and use the personal attacks (which I would recommend against doing). Late game though, you will want to spam the immobilizes to get max performance out of the incediary missiles and will likely be running an armor toggle (Black Scorpion's is +Def and stacks well w/ the FF bubbles and/or Leadership), which will be that much more of a drain on your blue bar. This is why it's often recommended to wait until the 30s (or later depending on build) to get Stamina (if at all), unless running Leadership toggles early (they're big end-hogs, but they do pay for themselves once you have a few bots available to benefit from them).



On Leadership:

While they're very handy to have for a MM, they do (exc Assault) require a fair number of slots, cost a fair bit each to run, and have ungodly long (4 seconds IIRC) animation times. That said, if you plan to go against either +3s (or higher) or hard targets (EBs/AVs mostly) a lot, they will pay off in spades, especially once you have all your bots out and fully loaded. The extra damage will mean things die faster (and partly offsets slotting the Probots for Def over Dmg, as I do), the extra to-hit means you can change up your slotting a bit and possibly free up a couple of slots for elsewhere, and the extra +Def (slotting Maneuvers up will actually pay for a Bot/FF, plenty to stack with) will make it that much harder for even AVs and such to hit your bots (you'll have over 50% +Def on 4 of your bots if you slot everything you can w/ 3 +Def).

Conversely if you plan to take on at most +3s (i.e. soloing on Relentless), you probably don't need them until the late 30s (if at all), and then mostly for AV fights (you really don't want your bots to miss against an AV, and some of them have insane +Def in godmode) . Taking Leadership may also necessitate taking Fitness (for Stamina), which will eat more power picks.

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Mobs are running at the START of the fight too, at least low-level ones. Was on a new Scrapper last night, engaged a typical street group of 3 +1 Hellions and one took off IMMEDIATELY, before I had even HIT anything. Have seen this on my lowbie Tanks as well.

I have seen Bosses run many times, you'd think a Boss would NEVER run, since they're supposed to be setting an example for the rest of the gang. Some Lts (Tsoo Sorcs, Skyraider Porters and Rikti Headmen are NOTORIOUS for this) are supposed to pop in and out of fights in order to hit you from behind as often as possible, but running away? That's messed up.

As far as the "run if we can't win" thing, if that's the case, then WHY would the mobs engage in the first place? If they "know" they can't win, wouldn't they not aggro to begin with?

On a related note, is there a level cap on this run code? I have never seen any Lt or Boss run above about the mid-30s (which isn't saying it hasn't happened). Alternatively, are some factions coded to just not run? Malta, Carnies, and Rikti sure don't IME.

That would be AMAZINGLY retarded...

...which would put it right in line for this crew.

The problem with reducing the stun is that if the Blaster doesn't 1-shot Stun the Boss, the Boss likely 1-shot Stuns (or worse) the Blaster (there are exceptions, depends on set combos), which is unacceptable since a Stunned Blaster is usually a dead one shortly thereafter (except vs Malta, who like to make it a long, drawn-out torture session ), and the Stun effect was specifically to allow the Blaster a chance to aviod that fate (IMO).

Also, if TF DOESN'T 1-shot stun the target, you're left hanging in a 3-sec anim, more than enough time for a Boss to unload some amped melee move which may 1-shot kill the Blaster.

Of course, if you want Blasters to dump the /EM set en masse, then by all means drop the Stuns. Those are what attracted many (if not most, I can't really say for sure) to the set in the first place since Blasters need anything/everything they can get to keep mobs from attacking them, since they cannot take the abuse.

Granted, many would still keep it for the frontloaded damage, but I suspect the number of users would drop precipitously if the Stuns were not reliable/strong enough to do the job.

The support powers, like Power Boost and Boost range, would still make the set attractive to some, but PvPers would be much less (IMO) inclined to take it without a means of stopping melee toons who have MUCH higher defenses (HP in some cases as well) from wiping them all over the map (yes, this is somewhat of an exaggeration, but you get the idea).