GuyPerfect

The 5th Column are no longer Nazis; that was retconned so they could release the game in Germany. I can find the exact part of the exact law that forbids it in German media, but please, stop calling the 5th Column Nazis. )-:

Issue 13 was hyped more, but then they noticed their planning team sucked and had to give AE the custom critter ability. So Issue 13 was just Day Jobs and crap, and poor Jimmy in marketing had to try to NOT make a total let-down of the whole thing in the announcement.

Issue 14 promptly introduced the Mission Architect which the devs have since forgotten about.

Oops! Hype was nothing but hot air. At least there were no big promises of "Issue 20 is gonna be soooooooo awesome, you guys!"... Which, as it turns out, wouldn't be too far off the mark like they were for Issue 13.

Triumph. That's the server you want. It's the only thing you need to know.

Oh, um... Welcome!

The issue was that I initially interpreted MajorDecoy as using "only" with "done" ("done [...] only") rather than "with" ("with [...] Def/global recharge and Def/End").

Buuuuuut... Yeah, the thread DOES have high Defense. It's about the necessary steps to achieve soft cap, not the interpretation of "only." (-:

Oh, I misread your earlier post. Thought you were saying that soft-capping with Ninjitsu could only be done with +Rech and Def/End. My bad. (-:


EDIT:

Well, the first two replies were on-target, at any rate. Maybe this thread has too much Defense. (-:

I've never been one for Defense. This is probably due in large part by my first experience with a Defense set being Energy Aura, but most of it is the the 5% hit chance floor that comes out to a 1 in 20 chance of hitting for every enemy around you. Defense, to me, has always been something with a 5% failure rate, which combined with Defense sets' general lack of other forms of protection (especially Energy Aura) reeeally turned me off. Like, to the point that I spurned Defense and swore my allegiance to the 100% success rate of Resitstance. This was years ago.

I rolled up a new character recently and decided that it would be that one character I pushed for Defense, since Stalkers with Resistance merely die more slowly than Stalkers without it (I'm using humor here, so don't get upset). Now, I'm picky when it comes to class roles, and I'm very strongly of the opinion that general-purpose survivability sets like the other melee archetypes get are errors for Stalkers. The only two secondaries I consider "authentic Stalker" are the ones with control: Ninjitsu and Dark Armor. And since I already had a Dark Armor character, Ninjitsu it was.

Working on the principle of "soft cap or bust," I did something else equally uncharacteristic of me: drafted a build that specifically took advantages of invention set bonuses. I'm a hardcore frankenslotter at heart, and since I've never had to worry about Defense before, all my builds have just been flavor and I've enjoyed the freedom of slotting all my powers for performance without sacrificing for set mules or anything. I've had a lot of successes in this regard, but Ninjitu's base defense numbers are quite a bit lower than my goal, so I had to stick my neck out.

I ended up drafting a build that I think looks really good, since it only uses one mule power (one which was initially taken just to gain access to a different one) and the other set bonuses ended up frankenslotting the powers they were placed in... I was giddy. What I had at the end, though, was soft cap to all three positional Defense types using just my secondary powers and Weave. No Maneuvers, no Combat Jumping; just Weave.

Turns out my expectations were maladjusted when selecting sources of Defense from the power pools. But it got me thinking, is this normal? Did I just happen to luck out and find a build I liked without having to toggle up? So that brings me to this thread...

To what lengths does one generally have to go in order to achieve the Defense soft cap to <insert position(s) of your choice> in a build? How many spare powers do you end up taking, how many set mules do you employ, and how much performance on a per-power basis do you sacrifice in order to get the bonuses you need?

My favorite, mechanically, has been Dark Armor / Ice Melee / Soul Mastery Tanker. It's enough different from the norm that it's always been quite interesting to play. The 3×Ice Dominator's quite fun from a combat perspective too.

I've been leveling a Broad Sword / Ninjitsu Stalker over the past couple of days. In addition to being the first Stalker ever rolled on my account (did you know Hide doesn't cost any Endurance???), it's also my first foray into the world of intentionally-excessive Defense, and even in the low 20's I'm experiencing the benefits of the soft cap (to melee, at any rate). I'm quite intrigued at how it'll end up.

Of course, every character I roll seems to be vastly different (and very interesting!) from any that came before it, and it's not always intentional. The Brute was designed simply to smush Rikti, but it's an AoE monster. The Defender was just rolled as an experiment, but it's in melee an awful lot for an Empathy. The Scrapper was designed to be the perfectly cliché villain, but has proven to be incredibly apt in battle...

I guess they're all my favorites in their own little way. Every powerset seems to bring something new to the table and there's always a lot of variety. Major props to the powers designers who managed to pull that off.

I think Samuel's point was that he uses the streak breaker to land hits. Nothing more. He doesn't strike me as a min/maxer.

And frankly, I agree. I hate it every single time Knockout Blow misses, but when Weaken misses, it's not so bad.

I took Bile Spray on my Mastermind because it's Bile Spray. Cone attacks on Masterminds are pathetic enough to begin with, but remember what's important: it's Bile Spray.