Justaris

Here's a Cliff Notes version:

Radiation Emission -
Must Have: Radiation Infection, Enervating Field, Lingering Radiation, Accelerate Metabolism
Good: Radiant Aura, EM Pulse, Mutation, Choking Cloud
Skippable: Fallout

Sonic Attack -
Must Have: Shriek, Howl, Shout, Screech
Good: Scream, Amplify, Siren's Song, Dreadful Wail
Skippable: Shockwave

Dreadful Wail is a bit of a special case, being a nuke, so it's a judgment call. The crash of the nuke will drop your endurance and therefore your toggles, so it's up to you whether that's worthwhile. Personally I find that it's nice to have the option.

I'll post more on this later if no one else has, don't have a lot of time at the moment.

I'd just like to add my two cents here. As most others have said, DA's endurance issues are quite overstated and can largely be solved with a simple Theft of Essence proc in Dark Regen. There's certainly no reason you'd be hurting for endurance without Dark Melee as your secondary.

I've played Dark/Elec to 50 and the AOE is nice both for doing damage and for gaining aggro quickly. Lightning Rod in particular makes a fun opener. I found the pairing to be both effective and fun. I plan to try out Kinetic Melee with Dark Armor next and I believe it will also work well.

I'd also recommend the OP read Dechs' DA thread if he hasn't already as Dechs has a number of good insights into the set and explains things well.

I'll be there tonight on my Rad/Rad Def (Tetujin).

Scourge does have a text float..

Yes, I did mean Whirling Hands. For some reason I was confusing Foot Stomp and Whirling Hands. Knew what I meant to say. Thanks for the catch.

Welcome back! I'll answer your questions as best I can, though some of what you asked will have a more subjective response rather than a single right answer. Here goes:

I just want to echo what's already been said here. At first glance, you might think that people aren't being helpful. After all, you asked for a build and people aren't giving you one.

I'm not a big fan of giving out builds in general, since I believe it promotes a cookie-cutter mindset with everyone just copying the builds of others - but in the case of Kheldians this is even more importnat because there are so many choices to make and slotting can be such a challenge.

In the long run, you're going to do a lot better and probably have a lot mroe fun if you make your own build and come to this forums to get comments on it. In other words, we can help you make your build better, but it really does need to be your build.

1) I agree that this change makes little sense, especially with the AV bugs still in place making the storm version incredibly difficult. It would have probably been better not to make this fix until after those bugs had been corrected.

2) This has very little to do with server population. It's not like Freedom has larger teams - it's 24 people, period. While you'll certainly see more runs on a server like Freedom, that's not to say that other servers can't be successful. I was just part of a successful run on Triumph recently.

This trial has issues that need to be addressed. That's what should be fixed. Attempts to use this to support the bad idea of server mergers don't hold up though. What you really need is 24 people that can pull off a well-coordinated attack. You're likely to get more attempts being run on a server like Freedom but this doesn't guarantee a higher quality of attempts. In fact, an argument could be made that you get just the opposite.

While I'm sure pretty much all Kheldian players would love to have more slots to play with, I personally am not in favor of greatly increasing the number of slots available for Kheldians. Why not? Because, as currently implemented, the slot crunch forces you to build your Kheldian carefully and place emphasis where you want it most -- precisely because you don't have enough slots to enhance everything just the way you'd like to.

This is the main reason we have such variations in builds in our AT (and the broad categories like "Tri-Form", "Human/Nova", "Human-Only", etc are just that and encompass great variety even within these areas). If we had a lot more slots to play with, we'd move towards a more cookie-cutter approach and everyone would just be playing the same thing as everyone else.

Hmm, that worked for me on my hero.

Okay, well it may very well be a bug for support to sort out, but we can run through the obvious stuff:

• You are a full villain, meaning you have done a villain morality mission and you have a red Arachnos symbol by your character name when you log in. Based on your first post it seems like you have this covered, but just making sure.
• You are not currently maxed out on active missions or maxed out on arcs
• You are not currenlty on a TF, SF, Ouroboros arc or MA arc

If none of the above apply, I can only assume you've been the victim of some kind of glitch and I wish you a speedy resolution from the GMs.

You need to choose GW as your patron before you can do her patron arc. Go talk to Arbiter Rein, he's the guy standing just outside the main room in Grandville. He'll have you read some plaques below statues of the patrons and then he'll allow you to make your choice, which introduces you to a patron as a contact.

Here's my initial thoughts, in no particular order:

• Resurrect is overslotted. I recommend you just put a single recharge here and call it done, especially now that anyone can make an awaken with whatever inspirations happen to be laying around. If you need Resurrect up this much, you probably need a better team.
• Fortitude taken late. I'm not sure if this is a respec build and I don't know if you plan to exemplar much, but I'd recommend getting Fortitude right when it becomes available at 12.
• Stealth/Invisiibility. Not bad picks per se, especially if you were to slot LOTG +recharge IOs in them but you can accomplish full invis much more easily just by putting a +Stealth IO into Super Speed or into Sprint. This would then free up two power picks for more useful powers such as attacks.
• TK Blast. It's one of the best powers in Psy Blast and I'd strongly recommend that you take it.
• Tactics underslotted. You haven't done much with this. If you can find the slots, there are some good sets you can use here. I would have slotted this with priority over Power Build Up.
• Psychic Wail (nuke) - this one's really more of a judgment call, as there are different and equally valid schools of thought regarding defender nukes. This is one of the better 'true nukes' for defenders, but it does still crash your endurance to use it, so whether or not that's worthwhile is something you'll have to decide. Personally, I usually take nukes on my empaths, but that's me.
• Expensive build. In case this wasn't already obvious, you've got an expensive build here what with the multiple purple sets. Since you're already going for the expensive stuff there, I'd recommend going for broke and working in five LOTG +recharges IOs into the build as well to max out the recharge you can get out of the build.

For me, anytime after 1pm PST on Fridays, daytime or late night Saturdays (just have to be done by 6pm PST or start after 9pm PST), and Sundays are all good.

I can also make most Monday and Wednesday nights if I have some advance notice.


So basically anytime on the weekend aside from the time you named.

I'd be very interested in running both of these. However, 7pm PST on Saturday does not work for me (I have a regular static team that runs from 6pm PST to 9pm PST on Saturdays).

I'll keep an eye on this thread and on TW in-game for any other runs. Also, if you end up trying both runs in one night, there's a chance I could make the second one depending on start time.

I'd also have to disagree with the 'plain unfun to play' assessment there. Unfun, like fun, is highly subjective and should not be the basis of major changes to the game. Since my Defense-based sets progress just fine and have no real problems staying alive (and in fact do better than some resistance-based sets against certain foes), I'd say it's a PEBKAC issue.

Personally I find that choking cloud is a useful addition to my arsenal as a Rad/Rad, but it's definatley something that people either like or hate and it's something I think you should keep or drop as you think best - or use the dual builds feature and do both!

As for Aim vs PBU, I'd suggest PBU. Not only is it a better damage buff, but it also buffs secondary effects such as Stun and Hold. I like to hit it right before EMP.

Well, click powers already carry over, but it sounds like you're asking for more powers to be available for actual triggering in the forms. I'm not opposed to allowing click powers in forms - powers such as Hasten, for instance. You can already use Accolade click powers in the forms.

As for Fighting and other toggles, I think you're starting to get towards a radical change in how Khelds play when you allow toggles into the forms, as especially for Nova form this potentially removes one of the main balancing elements (squishiness). Allowing toggles means allowing the three shield toggle powers to work in Nova and Dwarf, and that may be too far. Part of the design of this AT is trade-off, a generalist who needs to make choices as far as where to place emphasis. Too many changes in this direction works against and potentially destroys that.

Ultimately, I'm not a fan of changing something into something else so that more people will like it. I'm not against some QoL changes for Khelds, but making Khelds play more like, say, Scrappers isn't likely to make more Scrapper players play Khelds. It's still going to be a weaker Scrapper because, well, it's not a Scrapper.

That was just an example to illustrate the point. I'm not saying that you want to make Kheldians into Scrappers specifically, merely that these sorts of changes seem aimed at making Khelds more like something else rather than making them work better as what they are.

This is a big deal. Personally, I think it's likely to be more dramatic for PBs than for WSs - I generally only have any sort of endurance issue on my Warshades when I'm fighting EBs or AVs and I can't use Circle to good effect. Nevertheless, it's a buff across the board for anyone who uses forms.

I'd just echo what I said about the rad powers I'd recommend (Irradiate, Neutron Bomb and Cosmic Burst) in terms of which powers I'd suggest you consider from Radiation Blast. As far as 'absolutley needed heals/buffing', there's two things going on there. Firstly, buffs. No problem there, you should absolutely be buffing as often as you can, with Fortitude being your most important buff followed by AB and the auras, with Clear Mind a vital but often situational addition. These powers should all see heavy use.

To use the Tanker example, if you're keeping the Tanker buffed with Fortitude, Maneuvers, Tactics and the auras when they're up, then there shouldn't be a constnat need for healing (unless your Tanker is playing very poorly). I do wonder, with your previous statement about being the guy in the back who lands the heals, if you're staying close enough to your teammates to ensure your Leadership buffs are applying. On a Manticore TF, a Tanker should have most/all of his primary powers and should not be requiring constant healing. Likewise the other members of the team should have enough powers and enough experience to keep themselves standing. I'm not saying no need for heals, ever - there's always going to be occasional spikes of damage even with the best mitigation, but this should be something like 25% of the time (closer to 5-10% of the time if you have multiple well-played Defenders on team). It should not be anything close to 99% of the time.

Most often, the need for constant reactive healing suggests that something has gone critically wrong tactically - there's too much aggro, or someone is a very poor player, etc.

I'm aware that some 'pure healer' players enjoy this chaos and deliberately play in pickup groups because they want to increase their chances of running in these bad teams so that they can really test themselves. This is less "how can I be the most team friendly" and more "to what extent can I save these people from themselves". If that sounds like something you want to do, more power to you.

That's one opinion, I suppose.

Many people familiar with Kheldians would argue that there is in fact great benefit to be found in taking and slotting the forms and although this is not essential to good Kheldian builds (see the several highly successful Human-Only build players in this community), it is nevertheless effective. Now that the inherent works across forms, the only passive I can see getting upset about is Fitness. Since IO Set Bonuses carry across forms, this is easily remedied, and really more of an issue for PBs in any case as Stygian Circle largely obviates the problem on Warshades once you get the hang of using it to best effect.

On my PBs I simply make good use of Conserve Energy, Fitness (for when I'm in human form, which is often to make use of the self-heals, the melee attacks and the control) and my +Recovery set bonuses. It only takes hitting human form once every two minutes to keep the Numina and Miracle unique bonuses up, which is a non-issue since I'll rarely go much more than a minute without shifting forms in a tri-form build.

As for the forms being 'weaker than your main form', that depends on your definition of 'weak' and regardless of that definition is going to be wrong. If we're talking weak in terms of damage output, then the Nova form (properly slotted) is going to be superior in the lower levels and comparable in the upper levels. If we're talking toughness/survivability, then the Dwarf form again is going to be superior in the lower levels and comparable in the upper levels.

Naturally one's toughness in Nova is less than human and one's damage output in Dwarf is less than human - but to complain about this doesn't make much sense, since the forms are clearly designed towards these niches. If you as a tri-form player find you need to be tougher, you can shift to a tougher form. If you find you need more damage, again - shift forms. Expecting all forms to be all things misses the point of having different forms.

As for the other laundry list of complaints, well... there is status protection. There's Dwarf form, and Light Form if you're playing PB. Even if there wasn't, a majority of ATs in this game seem to find the game perfectly playable without toggle status protection - so unless you play only Scrapper/Tanker/Stalker/Brutes and refuse to touch anything without such protection, you should do fine. As far as Voids/Quantums, they've been nerfed to almost laughable levels now and can be easily handled with only minor variations in tactics. Even before they were nerfed, they were a non-issue to most seasoned Kheldian players and now they're almost a joke.

Edit: And I notice he's trolling multiple Kheldian threads, so this is probably just me being taken in by a deliberately ignorant troll, but perhaps the information will help someone else.

As others have already said, a 'pure healer' is not the best team support (pretty suboptimal actually). If you want a pure support role without attacking, then what yhou really want is a Controller as noted above. Defenders should use both their primary and secondary powersets to be fully effective in supporting their teams.

That said, if you want to be a 'pure healer', you can, it's just that such a choice isn't the team-friendly build you might think it is and the sacrifices you make (such as skipping or underslotting your attacks) actually hurt rather than help your team's efforts.

Unlike some other MMOs, there really isn't a need for a 'dedicated healer' role in this game and once you reach the late game those who attempt to fill such a role are largely redundant. When there are well-rounded Defenders on the team it is likely that healing won't be required often if at all, which is unfortunate when you've built mainly or solely for that function. I strongly advise you to reconsider.

One more point - your build is highly ineffiicient in terms of slotting. I suggest you read up on Enhancement Diversification and slot accordingly - you should not have four level 50 IOs of the same type in anything, that's a collossal waste. Even three level 50 IOs is somewhat wasteful since you're very close to the ED caps with only two. Putting six (as with Hasten, AB and some others above) is basically throwing slots away.

For an Emp/Rad, I'd strongly suggest making use of Irradiate, Neutron Bomb and Cosmic Burst at the very least. Using Irradiate and NB you can greatly debuff enemy defense, helping your team to hit their targets, and Cosmic Burst is both a good-damage single-target attack and a stun, allowing you to contribute both control and significant damage to the situation. Electing to work with fewer tools is rarely a good choice in this game - you should try for as many tricks up your sleeve as you can get.

Yeah, I would highly recommend you use the Market. When you're starting out, it's probably better to just put everything up for sale at the Market for a low price and take the profits - later on when you know what'll move and what won't, you can vendor the stuff that's unlikely to move on the Market.

Some recipes and salvage drop only in the lower level ranges and are much sought-after by high level players with deep pockets - you can make a bundle just from selling what you find playing normally. If you have the time and inclination, you can make even more by doing some modest market research and doing some marketeering (buying things off the market low and either crafting them to sell high or simply relisting them). This of course takes some knowledge of how the Market works and what's in demand, but it's not as time-consuming or as complex as you might think.

Take home message: I suggest you put everything up on the market for sale for 100 influence to start. Anything that fails to sell after three days, take down and vendor. You may be suruprised as just how much inf you end up making.

As a caveat, you are likely to end up selling some very valuable drops for less than their potential value going this route (some of the very good stuff can sell for several mililion more influence if it's crafted first), but since you were vendoring anyway it's all bonus to you at this point.