Justaris

Flyposes are incompatible with certain powers - for example, Dispersion Field and Sonic Dispersion will cause flypose emotes not to work. Try turning all powers off (except Fly!) and see if that resolves the problem.

Findulias covered things pretty well, so I'll just add a few tidbits on top of that. With Dark Regeneration you'll be able to completely heal yourself every time it's up, so a focus on +recharge works nicely for this kind of Tanker, especially if you manage to get your hands on a Theft of Essence: +end proc which greatly helps with the endurance cost for Dark Regen. How much endurance recovery and +end you really need depends very much on your build. I'd also add that +regeneration isn't all that great for a Dark since you'll be healing yourself to full routinely anyway, though +HP is still nice to have.

The first order of business is good endurance management and once you have that, I'd advise going either for Defense or for Recharge, both if you can manage it. The extra Defense helps protect you from high alpha strike damage and you really don't have to worry about anything else so long as you don't run dry of endurance. If something can't kill you fast, it can't kil you at all.

It plays a little differently than other Tankers, but since you're new to Tankers it's all new to you anyway.

Another point to consider is that, while an invite to a closed beta can be a nice 'thank you' gesture to Veteran players, not all of us Vets make good beta testers.

I myself am a terrible beta tester. My playtime is erratic. I have times where I may play for hours for a few days in a row and then not play for a week or more depending on my work schedule. When I do play, I'm likely to be more concerned with looking at new shinies than in active testing. I've been in a few betas and frankly I don't think I contributed much. I tried to, and send in reports as I found things, but in all honesty it was a token effort.

Arcanaville, on the other hand, should be in every beta. And paid in gold.

As some others have said, it's entirely possible to go without travel powers entirely now. This is considerably easier to do if you have multiple options for getting around outside of travel powers, such as:

In-Game shortcuts: Ouroboros (25+), Market Teleporter (purchased from Market), Day Job Market Teleporter (Day Job power), Accelerated Day Joab Market Teleporter (Day Job power), Pocket D Teleporter (if you have it), Mission Teleporter (if you have it), SG base teleports (different flavors of these as well - Veteran Reward and Day Job versions - though this doesn't do you much good unless your SG base has telepads set up). Don't underestimate the convenience of the Market teleporters - they're easy to get, you have have up to 21 charges of them on a given character at once (20 of which will replenish at no cost to you if you simply log out at the right place - and you can use the power itself to do that quickly and easily if you expect to be offline for a few days) and they can be used from level 1.

Temporary/Extra travel options: Raptor Pack (Safeguard/Mayhem reward, purchasable at Shadow Shard/Grandville), Zero G Jump Pack (Safeguard/Mayhem reward), Goldbricker Pack (villain only), Ninja Run (if you have it)

And there's likely even more that I've overlooked in this off-the-cuff list.

So yeah, you can easily get by without a true travel power for a vast majority of the game, especially if you have several of the above. I have more than one character who has no travel power now and aside from a few impatient teammates who want you at the mission RITE NAO there's not much of a downside.

That said, places where you're likely to really want a true travel power include the Shadow Shard (Fly/Teleport especially) or PvP. Many people play through to fifty several times over without doing much with either one of those, however. Use your discretion.

Even if you could TP the bodies, you'd waste too much time with the TP animation and they'd be faded away by the time you got them.

Starless Step is excellent for pulling, however, as Memphis_Bill pointed out.

Well to play Devil's Advocate a bit that isn't exactly a fair comparision. First off, Walk applies to everyone while the Kheldian sash would presumably be just for Kheldians (though a case could be made for unlocking it via the Moonfire TF for all heroes). So it makes sense to do the thing that benefits the most people and addresses the requests of the most players first. Walk works for heroes and villains and had been requested for a very long time.

Secondly, the Walk power was done on the fly in spare time and was not an official Dev project. We're lucky we got it. And it was something people had been asking for, well, forever.

You're really preaching to the choir here. The sashes are one of the most frequently requested things in the Kheldian community.

Bill was only giving you the reasons we've heard in the past for why we won't get them/haven't got them yet.

Pretty much what Camper said.

All this would accomplish would be to bring back the 'quick Katies' and other speed run TFs, and it would be a bit silly for the Devs to make such a move after implementing a system which eliminated just that activity. There's really no need for a random recipe roll at TF end - for many TFs it would be to the player's disadvantage to take the recipe since he/she could get several random rolls with the Merits (and newer/ignorant players could easily be burned by this and rightly ask why the option is even there since it's stupid to take it).

Since you've stated this is supposed to be a late-game build I don't suppose it would matter much, but why waiting until 16 for Fortitude? With the exemplaring rules you'd have it available even for early content like the Cavern or Posi so I suppose it's okay as-is, I just normally advise getting it right at 12.

That aside this looks like a solid build, especially for someone who's chosen to take a healing focus. You've got a couple well-slotted attacks here and you're making good use of the controls available to you. You might consider dropping Phase Shift for Screech unless you're taking Phase Shift for PvP reasons or something. In my experience since Phase Shift was changed a while back its utility is extremely limited.

While the point about true tanking is well-made, I've fulfilled a general 'tanking' role on my Defenders many times in teams. By this I mean that I've taken over the duty of aggroing new mobs, managing alpha strikes, and keeping the aggro managed and contained once acquired.

Now, I don't maintain the aggro on me in the same way that I do on my Tankers (generally I use a combination of controls and debufs to keep mobs clustered and nerfed into harmlessness), but I nevertheless fulfill a general tanking function in the absence of a true Tanker in that I manage the aggro for the team.

So in answer to the OP, yes.

Yes and no.

IF the to-hit debuff hits and IF it is not resisted, then you can basically consider it equivalent to more Defense for you.

The trick is that the attacks from DM can miss and that when they do hit, the to-hit debuff can be resisted (and in the case of purple-con enemies and especially AVs, resisted strongly). So the amount of suvivability it adds will be variable because the effect you get from it will likewise be variable (versus having true softcap defense, which you have regardless).

I'd also recommend using your second build for a soloing build. You can drop Taunt and slot your attacks more heavily - I think I use dual builds for my Tankers more than any other AT.

I've soloed Tankers often - while not as fast as, say, a Scrapper or Blaster, it's also considerably safer so you save time on that end by not getting as much debt and not losing time hitting hospital and running back. It won't be as fast as teaming, of course, but it's certainly viable. At least, that's my perspective, YMMV.


Oh, and minor point, but it's "illusion". Allusion is when you make a reference to something.

Basically Stamina is an extremely useful crutch. For most builds, especially after they mature to a certain point with enhancements, endurance issues will exist if you go all-out. There are three general ways to address this.

1) Don't go all-out all the time. This option works best if you can afford to allow your enemies to live for a bit (i.e. if you are difficult to kill, like a Brute or Tanker). Not using every attack every time it is up and taking things light until your blue bar buids up is an option, but not one many people embrace.

2) Compensate. If you build sufficient Endurance Reduction into yoru build, you won't run out of endurance as fast. Simple enough, right? However, many people prefer to optimize their damage, accuracy and recharge and don't want to use up slots with Endurance Reduction, so they reject this option as well. IO Sets make this a bit more palatable as often you get EndRedux along with other bonuses.

3) Increase the rate at which you regain endurance so that you can spend it with relative impunity. This is what Stamina does, to an extent. It allows you to not have to watch for or build for your endurance management, and many players find that an attractive prospect. There are also IOs that provide endurance recovery buffs such as Miracle: Recovery and Numina's Convalescence: Recovery/Regenaration.

The Willpower and Regeneration powersets have powers with provide the same sort of buff, which is why these powersets elect not to take Stamina more often than others.


You don't need Stamina, but many players don't enjoy endurance management and therefore don't enjoy playing without Stamina. Which is a valid playstyle choice and a prevalent one. It doesn't mean that every player should have it on every character or that character is gimped, it's just the easiest of the options out there to address endurance.

It should be a good combo, especially once you have a good attack chain going - the Psy attacks plus Lingering Rad should seriously debuff enemy recharge.

A quick overview, based on my experience and personal opinion:

Radiation Emission

• Must-Have: Radiation Infection, Accelerate Metabolism, Enervating Field, Lingering Rad
• Good to Have: EM Pulse, Choking Cloud, Radiant Aura
• Skippable but sometimes fun: Mutation, Fallout

Psychic Blast

• Must-Have: Mental Blast, Psychic Scream, TK Blast, Will Domination
• Good to Have: Subdue, Psychic Wail, Scramble Thoughts
• Skippable but sometimes fun: Psionic Lance, Psionic Tornado

Pool Powers

• Strongly recommend Hasten to further push the difference between your recharge and your enemies'. You speed yours up with AM and Hasten while you slow theirs down with your Psy blasts.
• Rad can be pretty endurance-hungry so Fitness comes in handy, though you can do without it with proper EndRedux slotting. If you take Choking Cloud, though, I'd take Stamina.
• Defenders get good bonuses from Leadership and if you take Tactics that also helps Choking Cloud. So this is another solid pool choice.
• If you're looking at IOing the build out on the high end, of course Leaping and Concealment provide good spots for LOTG: +Recharge IOs.

If you plan to solo a lot, the utility of Psionic Lance goes up some as it's tied for longest-range snipe in the game, as does the utilty of Radiant Aura since topping off your own health comes in handy. It's not much of an AOE group heal though, the weakest in the game in fact. Although, anyone who recruits a Rad/Psi to be a 'healer' is already a few points shy of a full game.

I probably would have made it 30 or 32 rather than 20, as well.

That said, I don't have any real problem with this change. Having a level-gated unlock is probably not the greatest mechanic for unlocking an AT that's more demanding in terms of build and tactical play and plenty of people PL'd to unlock them at 50. Personally I'm actually hoping that unlocing at 20 might bring down the number of people who compalin they aren't 'ubarz' enough for a level 50 unlock.

Likely that's overly optimistic and I'm sure we'll get a flood of people making snap judgments on Khelds in the wake of this, but in the long run I think this change is a good one. I love Khelds and I figure the more people get the chance to try and fall in love with 'em, the better for our little corner of the community.

I can't speak for everyone, of course, but personally I rarely take four power pools on my Kheldians. Slots tend to be at a premium for Kheldian builds, so more powers (unless they require little/no slotting) only that balance more difficult to strike.

I'm very interested in this project and in efforts of this nature generally.

My play times are erratic and I play on multiple servers, Protector included. At the least, I'd be interested in being a 'generic Mentor' with the possiblity of more intensive activity as my time permits.

To play Devil's Advocate, however, there's also something to be said for choosing your battles. Cysts, while annoying and potentially jarring from an RP perspective, are quite manageable as they currently present (unlike the way they used to be).

If we assume (pure speculation here, I have no knowledge one way or the other) that attempts to fix the spawning caused other bugs and turned out to be an extremely non-trivial matter to diagnose and repair, I can see weakening the cysts and backburning the issue. If it comes down to disabling Kheldian special spawns entirely or leaving things the way they are, I'd prefer the status quo.

To clarify:

If someone is hunting eyeballs for the Visionary badge to unlock the weapons that way, then you can tag along. This works because defeat credit goes to everyone on the team - so if you are on the team and you are on the map, you are getting credit for eyeball defeats whether you personally defeat them or not.

However, if you're trying to unlock the weapons by completing an arc or TF, then you have to actually complete that mission on that character. In this case, every character who wanted to unlock the weapons would have to have Naylor's arc and co-complete if they also wanted credit. So lowbies would not be able to tag along and get their weapons unlocked this way as they wouldn't be able to get Naylor's missions.

For a D3, I'd recommend enemy types that lack significant mez effects and don't heavily resist Negative Energy damage. Council or Behemoths both fit this description, as does Family. I would avoid Banished Pantheon.

Of the popular farming missions, probably the Council Earth mission or Maylor's Behemoth mission would be good. The Family alternate earth would also work, depending on what you're farming for (Family give decreased rewards, but if you're farming for purple drops they may be the best bet).